God taught Cain that all facts which take place here, are recorded too; aye, that they need no kind of attendant watcher, who supervising their proceedings shall note them in a book (though for ought we know to the contrary, this is true as well); but that they each have that peculiar quality attached by God to themselves that not a deed of any kind can happen but it becomes a witness in itself and bears record of its own occurrence.
The general principles of revelation intimate this idea, and the promise of God that “He will bring every work and every secret thing into judgment, whether good or bad,” confirms it. And such, I conceive, was the truth conveyed to this fratricide when he heard the appalling words, “Thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” Perhaps he had carefully concealed all beneath the sod, and with the greatest attention removed every visible trace to the superficial examiner of any record of his foul proceeding, but he now learnt that things which he thought dumb could raise their voice in the ear of Omnipotence, and that the blood of a brother which he had shed, could rise vocal in the words of prayer. Yes, depend upon it, that each act of your moral life leaves enough of a trace behind it, to give a proof that it has been performed. Nature, ever ready as the handmaid of religion, may instruct us here--let science not precede, but follow after faith: let it be used as I feel it ought to be; not to prove Scripture doctrines, but to illustrate and confirm them, and you will then find what I have so often asserted, that the best commentary on the Word of God will be found in His works! I have said then that, in the moral world, each moral deed leaves enough of evidence behind it in its effects, to bear witness of the fact here after; that each act of man’s history leaves a record behind it in its effects upon his soul who does it, upon other individuals and upon society, by which it may be traced out, and traced up to its originator. Now look to nature. The astronomer will demonstrate to you, not by a worn pathway in the heavens, but yet with as much certainty as though this existed, the exact line in which divers planets have moved through many thousands of years. The geologist digs into the crust of the earth, and proves beyond all question the former existence of animals long since extinct, and incapable of living in the earth in its present condition, and can show also what food, and what state of earth and atmosphere they enjoyed. Nay, he will descend with you into the quarry, and there point out, to your amazement proofs as clear as you can desire them, which shall satisfy you of the showers of rain which in past ages watered the fair garden of the earth with refreshing distillation. And when accompanying you into the coal shaft, he shall almost bewilder you with yet more mysterious revelations, as he shall point out the mighty forest of gigantic plants, once waving in grandeur and elegance upon the boundless prairie, and which have engraved their beauteous forms upon the solid carbonaceous block; you will then acknowledge (but perhaps only because you cannot longer deny it), that such a principle exists at least in nature that events record themselves. Or, once more, and to speak of things known to most of you. We are told that the Red Indian traces, without doubt or difficulty, the devious path by which the puny game he is pursuing has sought to escape him, and that accustomed to the rapid investigation of the tiniest footprint, he can do so with an ease and accuracy which astounds the traveller. Or, see again the power of chemical analysis! Blend together as many gases or as many fluids as you choose, and lo, obedient to the laws of Him who first created them, they call be severed each again into their respective characteristics, and each component particle shall stand forth in its own pristine original condition. Here assuredly, brethren, we have enough to illustrate, and (I think) to confirm our position. Shall the astronomer tell me the path in which yon planet walked in past centuries, and think you then that it is a difficult task for Him who made that planet to discover the actions of His creatures there? Shall the geologist unfold, from the dark recesses of the deep, the deeds and proceedings of former ages and of former existences, and even show the mark of the falling rain drop; and shall I hope to conceal my sins, either outwardly in the earth or inwardly in my heart, when God shall call them forth? Shall the habit of rapidly tracing out the smallest footstep so strengthen the unlettered Indian that he does so free from trouble, and shall we deem it inconceivable that the moral footprints of human life are trackless through any one step of our probationary way? Shall the hunter follow with unerring precision until he overtakes the victim whom he has resolved to make his prey; and can I look to escape the avenger of God’s holiness by avoiding him, when, all the while, every step I take in my moral course leaves a record (whether I will it or no), plain and unerring, of the course of life I am leading? Shall the chemical investigator untangle the compounds which ingenuity has mixed, and, setting all free again, distinctly point out the proportions which each component part had in the whole conglomerate, and shall I, by a mingling of bad actions with outwardly good ones, or by an amalgamation of my sins with those of other men, hope thus to prove myself free from all because I may be innocent of some? Ah, no! All nature too shuts me up in difficulty! Each loop hole is barred up and there is no escape I Sinner, sinner, I must confess myself; and, oh, whither shall I flee? The heights of heaven, the depths of hell, the mysteries and mazes of darkness, the rapidity of flight, each, all, fail me together I Fool, madman that I was, shall the sceptic cry out when (too late) he discovers his error presently: for he must learn then that every action of his life has recorded itself even when it was performed; a truth, a principle which nature confirms and illustrates in every particular, and which God taught him when He said to Cain long ago, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” (G. Venables, S. C. L.)
Sin coming back upon the sinner
Two brothers started to go West to seek their fortune. One had money, the other had not. When they got to the frontier, the one without money murdered the other, and taking his money fled to California. Doctors took the head of the murdered man and preserved it in alcohol. No ]proof of the murder could be found. No one was present when the deed was done. The brother was accused, but declared his innocence. No one was there but he and God. He was brought before jury and judge and declared his innocence. The dead face of his brother was brought into court. He gazed on it, he fainted and fell to the floor, and confessed his sin. There is a time when all these unconfessed sins will come in before us, tramp, tramp, tramp, till they all come back. (Dr. Talmage.)
Sin its own detective
One night in Edinburgh a person awoke to find that his house had been plundered. The alarm was raised, nor was it long ere the officers of justice found a clue. The thief, wounding his hand as he escaped by the window, had left a red witness behind him. The watchman flashed his lantern upon the spot. Drop by drop the blood stained the pavement. They tracked it on and on and ever on, till their silent guide conducted them along an open passage and up a flight of steps, stopping at the door of a house. They broke in and there they found the bleeding hand, the booty, and the pale criminal. And so unless they be forgiven, washed away in the blood of Jesus, shall your sins find you out. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The punishment of sin
We might illustrate the evil of sin by the following comparison: “Suppose I were gems along a street and were to dash my hand through a large pane of glass, what harm would I receive?” “You would be punished for breaking the glass.” “Would that be all the harm I should receive?” “Your hand would be cut by the glass.” Yes; and so it is with sin. If you break God’s laws, you shall be punished for breaking them; and your soul is hurt by the very act of breaking them. (J. Inglis.)
Everlasting punishment
If you cut a gash in a man’s head you may heal it; but you can never rub out, nor wash out, nor cut out, the scar. It may be a witness against you in his corpse: still, it may be covered by the coffin, or hidden in the grave; but then it is not till decomposition shall take place that it shall entirely disappear. But if you smite a soul, the scar remains: no coffin or grave shall hide it; no revolution, not even the upturning of the physical universe, shall obliterate it; no fire, not even the eternal furnaces of hell, shall burn it out. (Dr. Thomson.)
Blood will out!
How strangely deeds of blood are disclosed! Two French merchants, relates Clarke, were travelling to a fair, and, while passing through a wood, one of them murdered the other, and robbed him of his money. After burying him to prevent discovery, he proceeded on his journey; but the murdered man’s dog remained behind. His howling attracted passers-by, who were led to search the spot. The fair being ended, they watched the return of the merchants; and the murderer no sooner made his appearance than the dog sprung furiously upon him. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” How terribly was this exemplified in the case of Eugene Aram, whose very conscience at last unfolded the tale:--
“He told how murderers walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain.”
The blood of Abel and the blood of Jesus
I. In the first place, JESUS’ BLOOD SPEAKS BETTER THINGS IN GENERAL. What did the blood of Abel say?
1. Was it not the blood of testimony? When Abel fell to the ground beneath his brother’s club, he bore witness to spiritual religion. Our Lord Jesus Christ, being also a testifier and witness for the faith of God, spake better things than Abel because He had more to speak, and spake from more intimate acquaintance with God. He was a fuller witness of Divine truth than Abel could be, for He brought life and immortality to light, and told His people clearly of the Father. Our Lord Jesus Christ had been in the bosom of the Father, and knew the Divine secret; this secret He revealed to the sons of men in His ministry, and then He sealed it by His blood.
2. Moreover, the blood of Abel spake good things in that it was the proof of faithfulness. His blood as it fell to the ground spake this good thing;--it said, “Great God, Abel is faithful to Thee.” But the blood of Jesus Christ testifies to yet greater faithfulness still, for it was the sequel of a spotlessly perfect life, which no act of sin had ever defiled; whereas Abel’s death furnished, it is true, a life of faith, but not a life of perfection.
3. Moreover, we must never forget that all that Abel’s blood could say as it fell to the ground, was but the shadow of that more glorious substance of which Jesus’ death assures us.
4. It is well to add that our Lord’s person was infinitely more worthy and glorious than that of Abel, and consequently His death must yield to us a more golden-mouthed discourse than the death of a mere man like Abel.
II. Now we will enter the very heart of our text, while we remember that THE BLOOD OF JESUS SPEAKS BETTER THINGS TO GOD than the blood of Abel did. Now, what did Abel’s blood say to God? It said just this, “O God, one of Thine own creatures, the product of Thy matchless skill, has been dashed in pieces, and barbarously destroyed.” Yet the blood of Abel said more than this; it said, “O God, the blood shed here was shed for Thee.” It seemed to say, “If it were not for love of Thee, this blood had not been shed!” Do you hear, what a cry the blood of Abel must have had, and with what power it arose to heaven? But we are not left to conjecture as to the power of that cry, for we are told that God heard, and when He heard it He came to reckoning with Cain, and He said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the ground.” Can you stand at Calvary now and view the flowing of the Saviour’s blood from hands, and feet, and side? What are your own reflections as to what that blood says to God? Think now at the cross foot. That blood crieth with a loud voice to God, and what doth it say? Does it not say this? “O God, this time it is not merely a creature which bleeds, but, though the body that hangs upon the cross is the creature of Thy Holy Spirit, it is Thine own Son who now pours out His soul unto death. O God, it is Thine only-begotten One, dear to Thyself, essentially one with Thee, one in whom Thou art well pleased, whose obedience is perfect, whose love to Thee has been unwavering--it is He who dies. O God, wilt Thou despise the cries and the tears, the groans, the moans, the blood of Thine own Son? Most tender Father, in whose bosom Jesus lay from before the foundations of the earth, He dies, and wilt Thou not regard Him? Shall His blood fall to the ground in vain?” Then, moreover, the voice would plead, “It is not only Thy Son, but Thy perfectly innocent Son, in whom was no necessity for dying, because He had no original sin which would have brought corruption on Him, who had moreover no actual sin, who throughout life had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds. O God, it is Thine only-begotten, who, without a fault, is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and stands like a sheep before her shearers. Canst Thou see it, Thou God of all, canst Thou see the infinitely holy and just Son of Thy heart led here to die--canst Thou see it, and not feel the force of the blood as it cries to Thee? “Yet over and above this the blood must have pleaded thus with God:--“O God, the blood which is now being shed, thus honourable and glorious in itself, is being poured out with a motive which is Divinely gracious. He who dies on this cross dies for His enemies, groans for those who make Him groan, suffers for those who thrust the dart into His soul, and then mock at the agony which they themselves have caused. O God, it is a chain for God in heaven which binds the victim to the horns of the altar, a chain of everlasting love, of illimitable goodness.” Now, dear friends, you and I could not see a man suffer out of pure benevolence without being moved by his sufferings, and shall God be unmoved? the perfectly holy and gracious God, shall He be indifferent where you and I are stirred to deep emotion? Abel’s blood had mighty prevalence to curse, but Jesu’s blood has prevalence to bless the sons of men.
III. Furthermore, JESUS’ BLOOD SPEAKS BETTER THINGS TO US IN OUR OWN HEARTS than the blood of Abel. Oh, it must have been a remembrance clinging like a viper around the murderer wherever he might be! He might well build a city, as we are told he did, in order to quench these fiery remembrances. Then would the thought come upon him, “You slew him though he was your brother.” The innocence of his victim, if Cain had any conscience, must have increased his uneasiness, for he would recollect how inoffensively he had kept those sheep of his, and had been like one among them, so lamblike, that shepherd man himself, a true sheep of God’s pasture. “Yet,” would Cain say, “I slew him because I hated God, the God before whose bar I am soon to stand, the God who set this mark on me.” Can you picture the man who had thus to be daily schooled and upbraided by a brother’s blood? It needs a poet’s mind to teach him. Think how you would feel if you had killed your own brother, how the guilt would hang over you like a black cloud, and drop horror into your very soul. Now, brethren, there is more than equal force in the cry of the blood of Jesus, only it acts differently, and it speaketh better things. Let it be remembered, however, that it speaks those better things with the same force. Comforts arise from the blood of Jesus as powerful as the horrors which arose from the blood of Abel. Just in proportion as thought of murder would make Cain wretched, in the same proportion ought faith to make you happy as you think upon Jesus Christ slain; for the blood of Christ, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, cannot have a less powerful voice; it must have a more powerful voice than that of Abel, and it cries therefore more powerfully for you than the blood of Abel cried against his brother Cain.
IV. Two or three words to close with. JESUS’ BLOOD, EVEN IN MY TEXT, SPEAKS BETTER THINGS THAN THAT OF ABEL. It speaks the same things, but in a better sense. Did you notice the first text? God said unto Cain, “What hast thou done?” Now, that is what Christ’s blood says to you: “What hast thou done?” My dear hearer, dost thou not know that thy sins slew the Saviour? If we have been playing with sin, and fancied it to be a very little thing, a trifle to play with and laugh at, let us correct the mistake. Our Saviour hangs on the cross, and was nailed there by those sins of ours; shall we think little of them? What I want mainly to indicate is this. If you notice in the second text, this blood is called “the blood of sprinkling.” Whether Abel’s blood sprinkled Cain or not I cannot say, but, if it did, it must have added to his horror to have had the blood actually upon him. But this adds to the joy in our case, for the blood of Jesus is of little value to us until it is sprinkled upon us. Faith dips the hyssop in the atoning blood and sprinkles it upon the soul, and the soul is clean. There is another matter in the text with which I conclude. The apostle says, “We are come to the blood of sprinkling.” He mentions that among other things to which we are come. Now, from the blood of Abel every reasonable man would flee away, He that has murdered his fellow desires to put a wide distance between himself and the accusing corpse. But we come to the blood of Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Am I clear of his blood?
I. First, we are to MAKE A SEARCHING INQUIRY FOR THE CRIMINALS. There are many persons whose brother’s blood cries to God from the ground.
1. There is the seducer; he spake with honeyed words, and talked of love, but the poison of asps was under his tongue, for lust was in his heart.
2. Then there are men who educate youth in sin, Satan’s captains and marshals; strong men with corrupt hearts, who are never better pleased than when they see the buds of evil swelling and ripening into crime. Beware, ye who hunt for the precious life!
3. Ay, and I know some base men who, if they see young converts, will take a pride in putting stumbling blocks in their way. They no sooner discover that there is some little working of conscience, than they laugh, they sneer, they point the finger.
4. Then there is the infidel, the man who is not content to keep his sin in his own breast, but must needs publish his infamy; he ascends the platform and blasphemes the Almighty to his face; defies the Eternal; takes Scripture to make it the subject of unhallowed jest; and makes religion a theme for comedy.
5. And what shall I say of the unfaithful preacher--the slumbering watchman of souls; the man who swore at God’s altar that he was called of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word of God; the man upon whose lips men’s ears waited with attention while he stood like a priest at God’s altar to teach Israel God’s law; the man who performed his duties half-asleep, in a dull and careless manner, until men slept too and thought religion but a dream? What shall I say of the minister of unholy life, whose corrupt practice out of the pulpit has made the most telling things in the pulpit to be of no avail, has blunted the edge of the sword of the Spirit, and turned the back of God’s army in the day of battle?
6. To come yet closer home to this present audience. How much of the blood of man will lie at the door of careless professors. You that make a profession of being Christians and yet live in sin, you are the murderers of souls by thousands.
II. But to pass on; I was, in the second place, to HOLD UP THIS CRIME TO EXECRATION, the chief point being whose blood it is; it is the blood of our brethren. “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.”
1. Perhaps, young man, it is your natural brother’s blood that cries against you.
2. It may be, however, it is the blood of your father or mother. Some of you young people have come to London, and God has met with you in this house of prayer; you still have ungodly parents in the country, have you quite forgotten them? What if your grey-headed sire should die!
3. But what shall I say to those who are not only careless of parents, but are neglecting their own children? Mother, what if the voice of your child’s blood should cry to God against you!
III. We are in the third place TO EXPECT THE JUDGMENT. “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” It does not cry to a deaf ear, but to the ear of One who hears and feels the cry, and will certainly make bare His arm to smite the offender and to avenge the wrong.
IV. I hope that these terrible things have prepared our minds to hear the better THE VOICE OF EXHORTATION. If there be the voice of blood crying against us today, and we affirm that none of us can altogether escape from it, what shall we do to be rid of the past? Can tears of repentance do it? No. Can promises of amendment make a blank page where there are so many blots and blurs? Ah, no! Nothing that we can do can put away our sin. But may not the future atone? May not future zeal wipe out past carelessness? But a sweeter and a louder cry comes up--“Mercy, mercy, mercy”; and the Father bows His head and says, “Whose blood is that?” and the voice replies, “It is the blood of Thine only-begotten, shed on Calvary for sin.” The Father lays His thunders by, sheathes His sword, stretches out His hand, and crieth to you, the sons of men, “Come unto Me, and I will have mercy upon you; turn ye, turn ye; I will pour out My Spirit upon you and ye shall live.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Blood crying to God
Thus from the days of Abel has pleaded the blood of the saints:--“How long, O Lord, wilt Thou not judge and avenge our blood?” Thus the voice has been going up for ages from the ground, from the cell, from the cave, from the rock, from the glen, from the moorland, from the flood, from the flame, from the scaffold. What spot of Europe, not to take in more, is there from which this cry is not ascending? From the plains of Italy, from the valleys of Piedmont, from the dungeons of Spain, from the streets of Paris, from the stones of Smithfield, from the fields of Ireland, from the moors of Scotland; from all these has been ascending for ages the cry, “How long!” a cry unsilenced and unsatisfied; deepening and swelling as the ages roll on; a cry which will ere long be fully answered by the coming of Him who is the great avenger of blood and rewarder of His saints. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
Undone
The Rev. Rowland Hill, preaching on one occasion from this text at Cowes, began his sermon as follows: “In my way to your island, I visited the county jail at Winchester, and there I saw many who were accused of heavy crimes, but who seemed careless and indifferent, and to have but little sense of their awful situation. But one young man attracted my attention: he kept separate from the rest, and seemed very much troubled. I went up to him and said, “And what have you done, young man?” “Sir,” said he, deeply affected, “I have done that which I cannot undo, and which has undone me.” This, my dear friends, said the minister, “is the situation of every one of you. You have each of you done that which has undone you, and which you cannot undo.”
The stain of blood
The mind of man has been compared to a white sheet of paper. Now, it is like a white sheet of paper in this, that whatever we write upon it whether with distinct purpose or no, nay, every drop of ink we let fall upon it, makes an abiding mark, a mark which we cannot rub out without much injury to the paper; unless, indeed, the mark has been very slight from the first, and we set about erasing it while it is fresh. In one of the grandest tragedies of our great English poet, there is a scene which, when one reads it, is enough to make one’s blood run cold. A woman, whose husband had made himself king of Scotland by means of several murders, and who had been the prompter and partner of his crimes, is brought in while in her sleep, and continually rubbing her hands, as though she were washing them, crying ever and anon, “Yet here’s a spot . . . What! will these hands ne’er be clean?. . .here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” In these words there is an awful power of truth. We can stain our souls; we can dye them, and double dye them and triple dye them; we can dye them all the colours of bell’s rainbow, but we cannot wash them white. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten them, all the fountains of the deep will not wash one little spot out of them. The usurping Queen of Scotland had been guilty of murder; and the stain of blood, it has been very generally believed, cannot be washed out. But it is not the stain of blood alone; every stain soils the soul and none of them can be washed out. Every speck of ink eats into the paper; every sin, however small we may deem it, eats into the soul. If we try to write over it, we make a deeper blot; if we try to scratch it out, the next letters which we write on the spot are blurred. Therefore is it of such vast importance that we should be very careful of what we write. In the tragedy which I was quoting just now, the Queen says, “What’s done, cannot be undone.” This amounts to the same thing as what I have written, in the sense in which I am now calling upon you to consider these words. What’s done cannot be undone. You know that that is true. You know you cannot push back the wheels of time, and make yesterday come again, so as to do over afresh what you did wrongly then. That which you did yesterday, yesterday will keep: you cannot change it; you cannot make it less or greater; if it was crooked you cannot make it straight. (J. C. Hare.)
Horror of a murderer
Coleridge tells of an Italian who assassinated a nobleman in Rome, and fled to Hamburg for safety. He had not passed many weeks before, one day, in the crowded street, he heard his name called by a voice familiar to him; he turned short round, and saw the face of his victim looking at him with a fixed eye. From that moment he no peace: at all hours, in all places, and amidst all companies, however engaged had he might be, he heard the voice, and could never help looking around; and whenever he so looked round he always encountered the same face, staring close upon him. The Italian said he had struggled long, but life was a burden which he could now no longer bear; and he was resolved to return to Rome, to surrender himself to justice, and expiate his crime on the scaffold.
