Well, praise Jesus today. It's a blessing to freely speak about the things that Jesus has for us to speak about.
One of those things that's been on my heart, besides the five foolish and the five wise virgins, is Cain's offering. It's interesting because not just Abel offered an offering — Cain also offered an offering. You have to think: who are the sorts of people now that offer God an offering? They're the sorts of people that are religious or they believe in God. They want to please God. You wouldn't give God an offering if you didn't believe in Him. Atheists aren't bringing God an offering. Non-believers, agnostics — they're not bringing God an offering. The people that are bringing their offerings to God are people that are doing so because they want to please, or appease, or get something from God, or find something like that, right?
So, the sorts of Christians that we have to have in our mind — that are even bringing an offering to God — most likely are part of the body of Christ, or at very least, they're people that are trying to be in God's favor. They're not people in active rebellion.
Cain was one of those. He wanted, at least to some degree, to please God. Else, he wouldn't have even tried to bring some of the fruits of his field to God in the first place. If he was so rebellious in the first stages of his life, he would have just said, "Forget it. I don't want to be anything like my brother Abel. Abel can bring a lamb if he wants. He can sacrifice that to God. But forget it, I just want to be in rebellion against God." There’s a lot of people like that. They will never bring any sort of offering to God. At the very least, Cain was in the place that he wanted to offer something to God. And I say that tongue-in-cheek.
But today, we have a lot of Christians that bring a Cain offering to God. What do I mean by that? They are genuinely offering things. They want to be on God's good side. But at the end of the day, God will reject their offering, and He will reject them.
Remember: God loved Abel. He loved his offering. But He hated Cain. He despised Cain's offering. And He gave Cain the choice to repent, and Cain didn’t repent. What was God's word to Cain? It was: "Sin is knocking on your door and its desire is for you, Cain, but you must overcome it. And if you don't overcome it, there is the devil crouching at your door." So, God warned Cain. You can read about this. And Cain became so jealous because his brother found favor in the eyes of God — both with his attitude and what he brought, his offering or his sacrifice. Cain just became so mad.
Theologians talk about this, and they can't figure out why God loved Abel and his offering, but despised Cain. They think, "Well, I don't know. Maybe God just didn’t like the fruit of the ground, but He really liked a lamb."
But there are two things going on. One is our attitude — the way we approach God. But the second is what we’re actually bringing to God. I want to explain that a bit further, because obviously, your heart attitude — whatever you bring — has to be right before God. Clearly, Cain didn’t have a heart attitude that was acceptable to God. Cain was jealous, and he brought his offering to God out of jealousy.
But the more profound thing is, besides the fact that Cain just had a really bad attitude, what he was bringing to God was not what God required. The service that Cain wanted to offer to God was not what God asked. He was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice. Abel’s sacrifice represented a lamb, and it was kind of prophetic, as Jesus became the perfect Lamb of God, who sacrificed for us. But what Cain brought was the fruits of the ground — maybe vegetables. He brought something from what he was harvesting, and he thought that would please God. Now, I'm sure there was more communication between God and Cain and Abel than what you read in the Bible. But what Cain brought, we know God rejected. He rejected it because of Cain’s attitude, and He also rejected it because it’s not what He required. Maybe if Cain also brought one of the firstborn lambs with a good attitude, he would also be accepted.
Now, where this makes a connection with today is: a lot of Christians are sacrificing things for God. Their sacrifices are legitimate, as far as it is — it’s a real sacrifice. Some Christians are sacrificing a whole lot of their time. They're sacrificing more than 10%. They give money and time to their church, to missionary trips. And they’re genuinely sacrificing things.
But the offerings that they’re bringing to God, and the services that they’re bringing to God, are not the services that God wants or desires. So God will reject them. Because these Christians, like Cain, are trying to serve God the way that they want to serve God. How many Christians are like that? They say, "God, I will serve you, but I will serve you my way. I want to become a missionary. I want to become a pastor. I want to become a man who makes a lot of money and then donates my money to your kingdom." They think because they have money, or power, or influence, that God has to accept their services. That God will just hire them to serve Him their way.
You can’t demand how you will serve God. Even in this world, you can’t do that. Think: if you're in some kind of a service — if you deal in customer service — you have to bring the service that your customers want. And if you don’t bring the service that your customers want, they’re going to fire you right away. If you are bad at whatever service you bring, they will fire you, and they will find the person who is less expensive and offers a more quality product. People in the world — they know this.
It wouldn’t be any different or a lesser standard with God. If you come before God and you say, "Hey, these are the things that I have to offer you, God. I know that you haven’t required this, but I just really want to serve you in this manner," you’re in big trouble, because you are serving God in the way you want to serve Him.
I have some examples of this, but it’s individual to each person. One example of this is: I had a grandfather — who was my mother’s dad — and he was a man who our whole family looked up to. He was a missionary to Africa. For years, he was a missionary there. But at the end of his life, it became very clear that all these offerings — all this time and devotion that he had to God — was actually serving God his way. At the end of his life, it was clear that he was in rebellion against God. He didn’t really have the love of Jesus in his heart, which was really sad for all of us to see.
Many Christians are like this. They want to serve God their way — being a missionary of their choice or serving God their way in their business — but they never seek of the Lord the path that He would have for them. They don’t have a word from God. It's sufficient enough for these Christians to be guided by their pastor and their Bible and their wise counselors in church. But they've never got approval upon their life or their path by God. If we want to be approved by God, we have to ask Him and say, "Lord, what is an offering that I can bring to You? How can I bear good fruit for You? Because I know that without You I can do nothing." If we're disconnected from the vine, we can do nothing. Without Jesus, we can do nothing. There's nothing that we can do for God by the arm of the flesh where He's going to say, "Enter into My kingdom, thank you so much for serving Me your way."
And almost every Christian that I see today, guys, is serving God their way. They're Christians in church that have their little ministries, they pay their 10%, they have all their little good-to-do things in the community, and they serve God their way. And they're completely fruitless. They only talk about God as long as it surrounds their church atmosphere. They don't have a new tongue. They're not baptized in the Holy Spirit. They're not filled with the love of God. They're only filled with love for people like themselves in their own little community. They only love their church religion.
But if we really have the love of Jesus in us, we're part of a new creation, a new kingdom. We're changed. It's Jesus' truth that's on our tongue, and we set fires everywhere because the fire of the Holy Ghost is in us. But that is not what's happening in the church. That's not what's happening with these Christians today. Oh no, they are serving God the way they want to.
And this is a huge problem because even though they have a nice and polished lamp, they have no oil in their lamp. They believe they have the Holy Spirit. They can fool the pastor. They can fool the other leaders in the church. They can fool you as a Christian. But when the midnight hour strikes, it will be made evident to all that they have no oil in their lamp. They have never heard from the Holy Spirit. They've just heard from their little “w” word of God — their Bible.
But if we want to be genuine, if we want to have the love of Jesus in us, we need to come into the faith the same way all the patriarchs did, the same way all of the prophets did, the same way all of the disciples did — which was walking by faith, and then receiving the truth that we can be led along by the oil of the Holy Spirit.
You can't make up the oil of the Holy Spirit. You can't go to church and receive the oil. You can't just read the Bible and receive the oil. You have to go to the One that can give you the oil, which is the Holy Spirit. You say, "Lord Jesus, please give me some of Your oil. Please fill me with Your oil." And you humble yourself before God. You can't get that from your pastor. You can't get that from seminary or Bible college. You have to wait on the Lord, wait for His baptism. And then when He fills you and gives you a new tongue and a new heart, a new mind, eyes to see, and ears to hear, then you can be led along by His Spirit.
But sadly, most Christians are led along by other Christians. They're in the echo chamber. They hear what Christians say and they echo that. But they're not led along by the Holy Spirit. They are exactly like the five foolish virgins. They're spiritually sleeping. And by the time they wake up, it's going to be far too late. And all along they've been giving these sacrifices that everyone says, "Praise the Lord! I'm so thankful that brother so-and-so offers his time, he offers his money, he offers all these things." But they are Cain-sacrificing. They're sacrificing exactly like brother Cain, who God rejected.
Remember, Cain and his offering both were rejected by God. God hated it. And we don't want to be those Christians that are Cain-offering Christians. We want to be like Abel — that even if we die giving our offering to God because people hate us, that we are accepted into the kingdom. And even if our blood cries out from the dirt, that we are accepted into the kingdom of God because we lived righteously, and we offered from the bottom of our heart an offering that was well-pleasing to our Father in heaven.
Do we love Jesus? Do we love Him as Abel loved his Father? Do we love Him as Abraham loved his Father, as Moses loved God? Do we love Him as Peter loved Him and all of these people who desperately wanted others to love God? Or are we just Cain-Christians, Cain-offering Christians?
Think about it, because so many people are sacrificing. There are people that are persecuted for their faith. Christians aren't the only ones that are persecuted. Muslims are persecuted. People that are Catholic — of every religion of the world, they're all persecuted if they are persistent in their faith. But just because you're persecuted, and you have an offering, and you have a sacrifice, does not mean that God will approve of you. Will God approve of your service? Will He approve of what you're offering Him? Or will it all be vanity? Will it all be vanity?
I want to pray for those of you that want to receive the oil of the Holy Spirit, and for those of you that want an offering more than the Cain offering, that you want to have an offering like Abel's — bringing the firstborn lamb, bringing the truth from your heart before the Lord and saying, "Lord, restore my heart. Restore the truth of Jesus Christ into my heart." Because that's who should be in your heart.
“Lord Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters in the Lord, that You may renew their faith. If they've had faith, that You would restore their faith. If You have been in their heart before, that what they offer from the bottom of their heart would be a true sacrifice of love and purity, and that You would accept them. I pray that no longer would we offer You a Cain sacrifice of bitterness and of things that You have not required. We pray that we will not sacrifice things that bring a detriment to ourselves or to our family. We know far too many Christians sacrifice things that damage even their own children in the name of God. But we pray that the offering and the sacrifice we bring before You, Lord, will be pleasing to You, and that more people will come into Your kingdom with a sacrifice of holiness that will come up as a beautiful incense before God — that God will accept. We pray this in Your name, Lord Jesus, and for many more people to come into the household of faith. In Your name, Lord Jesus, Amen.”
