Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1399
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9.
To what a shameful pitch of presumptuous impudence had Cain arrived when he could thus insult the Lord God! If it had not been on record in the pages of Inspiration, we might almost have doubted whether a man could speak so impudently when actually conscious that God Himself was addressing Him. Men blaspheme frightfully, but it is usually because they forget God and ignore His Presence. But Cain was conscious that God was speaking to him. He heard Him say, “Where is Abel your brother?” and yet he dared, with the coolest impertinence, to reply to God, “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?” As much as to say—“Do You think that I have to keep him as he keeps his sheep? Am I also a shepherd as he was and am I to take as much care of him as he did of a lame lamb?”
The cool impudence of Cain is an indication of the state of heart which led up to his murdering his brother and it was also a part of the result of his having committed that terrible crime. He would not have proceeded to the cruel deed of bloodshed if he had not, first, cast off the fear of God and been ready to defy his Maker. Having committed murder, the hardening influence of sin upon Cain’s mind must have been intense and so, at last, he was able to speak out to God’s face what he felt within his heart and ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
This goes a long way to explain what has puzzled some persons, namely, the amazing calmness with which great criminals will appear in the dock. I remember to have heard it said of one who had undoubtedly committed a very foul murder, that he looked like an innocent man. He stood up before his accusers as calmly and quietly, they said, as an innocent man would do. I remember feeling, at the time, that an innocent man would probably not have been calm! The distress of mind occasioned to an innocent man by being under such a charge would have prevented his having the coolness which was displayed by the guilty individual. Instead of its being any evidence of innocence that a man wears a brazen front when charged with a great crime, it should, by wise men, be considered to be evidence against him.
Well may he seem dispassionate and unmoved who has already been so unfeeling as to dip his hand in blood. If he were so hardened as to do the deed, it is not likely he will display much softness when the deed is brought home to him. Oh, dear Friends, let us shun sin, if it is only for the evil effect which it has upon our minds! It is poison to the heart! It stupefies the conscience, drugs it, sends it to sleep! It intoxicates the judgment and puts all the faculties, as it were, into a state of drunkenness, so that we become capable of monstrous bravery and blind impertinence which makes us mad enough to dare insult God to His face! Save us, O God, from having our hearts hammered to the hardness of steel by sin! Daily keep us, by Your Grace, sensible and tender before You, trembling at Your Word.
Now, let us note, here, that while we are thus heavily censuring Cain, we must mind that we are not guilty ourselves! If we look at it without prejudice, every kind of excuse that we make to God is a very high piece of presumption. When we are charged with any form of guilt, if we begin denying or extenuating, we are guilty of the sin of Cain as to impudence before God. And when there is any duty to be performed and we begin to shirk it, or try to make an apology for disobedience, are we not forgetting in whose Presence we stand? Does He charge me with what I have committed and shall I be so wicked as to attempt a denial? Does He bid me perform a duty and do I begin to hesitate, question and ask myself, “Shall I, or shall I not?” Oh, bold rebellion! The essence of treason lurks in every hesitancy to obey and dwells in every attempt to extenuate our fault when we have already disobeyed.
You think Cain a monster that he should dare to face it out with God? Yet God is everywhere present and every sin is perpetrated while He is watching! Against Him do we sin and in His Presence we do evil! And when we begin to make excuses for wrong done or hesitate concerning duty commanded, we are disobeying in the immediate Presence of the Lord our God. Since we have, doubtless, been guilty of this, let us humbly confess it and ask the Lord to give us great tenderness of conscience that from now on we may fear the Lord and never dare to stand up to question what He has to
say. The very same thing, no doubt, lies at the bottom of objections to Bible Truths. There are some who do not go to Scripture to take out of it what is there, but seeing what is clearly revealed they then begin to question and judge and come to conclusions according to their notions of what ought to have been there.
No, but O Man, who are you that replies against God? If He says it, it is so! Believe it! Can you not understand it? Who are you that you should understand? Can you hold the sea in the hollow of your hand, or grasp the winds in your fist? Worm of the dust, the Infinite must always be beyond you! There must always be about the glorious Lord something that is incomprehensible and it is not for you to doubt because you cannot understand, but rather humbly to bow before His Presence who has made you and in whose hand your breath is. God save us from the presumption which dares to say with Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” and from the profane arrogance which replies to the Lord in the spirit of Cain!