Genesis 4:13-26

Cain's Punishment

Gen 4:13

My object is to show, so far as I may be able, some of the necessary consequences of sin, and to point out how those consequences prove the terribleness of wrong-doing. Sometimes we know a thing better by its consequences than by its essence. I think this is particularly the case with sin. It may require great intellectual power to see sin as sin, but the consequences of sin show themselves in glaring and appalling clearness to the dullest eyes. If, then, any man would really know the sinfulness of sin let him study its effects upon himself, and look at its consequences within the circle with which he is most familiar.

Have you ever noticed the effect of a wicked thought in its swift passage through the brain? I have alas, too often! in my own case. I have been in high intellectual health one moment, and in the next I have been thrown down as by an invisible bolt of fire; that invisible bolt was a wicked thought ; an idea that flashed through the mind and was never known to any but God. I had suffered great loss. The brain was stunned, and for the moment it lost the fine delicate power of moving with ease through difficult questions and high speculations. Its most exquisite threads had lost their tension, and its bloom mouldered and perished. You cannot explain this fully to any one who has not felt it. But you who have felt loss of memory, a sensation of dizziness, and painful uncertainty in mental exercises; you who have turned giddy where once you stood like a rock, and have stammered where once you spoke with determined emphasis; you know what I mean by the sad effects of melancholy thought upon intellectual completeness and power; and in that desolating hour you may have said with infinite bitterness "My punishment is more than I can bear."

But sin is moral rather than intellectual, and its moral consequences may be considered as more marked and terrible than the intellectual results. This is actually the case. Sin lures a man to his destruction. It eats out his soul piece by piece. If there is such a thing as a moral nerve it softens, crumples, wastes, kills it, and then it gets the whole man into its unholy and cruel dominion.

Take a lie, and trace what may be called its natural history. First of all, the man must lie to himself, note that fact carefully, if you please. In getting his own consent to the lie, the man told the lie to himself. In that moment he impoverished his vitality, and prepared himself to go the next step, and when he went the next step he became so weak that he could be driven to any length on the road of wickedness. Thus he exposed himself to a new attack he came within the humbling and shattering influence of fear. "The righteous are bold as a lion"; but loss of righteousness is loss of boldness. Here, then, is an intolerable punishment. The scourge of fear is always lacerating the bad man. Beckon him, and his knees knock together by reason of false alarm. Turn suddenly upon him, and he feels a sword cutting through his very heart He flees, "when no man pursueth," and a great shadow lies coldly across his merriest feast. This is punishment. It is a punishment that never ceases When the wicked man goes to rest his pillow is too hard for his throbbing head. If he fall into troubled slumber, an unexpected tap at his door will be to him as an earthquake, or as a call to sudden judgment. And he never gets the better of this. Indeed, he gets worse and worse, until his own shadow frightens him, and his own voice seems to be calling for his detection and punishment. His punishment is greater than he can bear; its reality is great, but its imagination is infinite! Hell, in its most terrible and revolting aspect, becomes simply the natural and proper end of sin. If we could think ourselves back into a state of innocence, it would probably be impossible to us to create, even imaginatively, the idea of hell. It would not come within the region or range of our thinking. It would be like something that required an additional sense to apprehend or lay hold of it But let that innocence be lost let the soul stray from its sacred sanctuary let it lose its hold upon God and instantly hell opens, and hell is felt to be the proper end of sin. The sinner creates his own hell.

Cain said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." We sometimes say that punishment should be proportioned to sin. There is a sense in which that is most true and just It is most true and just with regard to all punishment that comes from the outside. It is a law which must be obeyed by the parent, the magistrate, and every wronged or offended man. But this is by no means the limit of the question. The punishment which a man inflicts upon himself is infinitely severer than any punishment that can be inflicted upon him. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" You remember how you ill-treated that poor child now dead; you saw the anguish of his soul, and he besought you and you would not hear; and now a great distress is come upon you, and your bread is very bitter. Who is punishing you? Not the magistrate. Who then? You are punishing yourself. You cannot forgive yourself. The child touches you at every corner, speaks to you in every dream, moans in every cold wind, and lays its thin pale hand upon you in the hour of riot and excitement. You see that ill-used child everywhere; a shadow on the fair horizon, a background to the face of every other child, a ghastly contrast to everything lovely and fair. Time cannot quench the fire. Events cannot throw into dim distance this tragic fact. It surrounds you, mocks you, defies you, and under its pressure you know the meaning of the words, which no mere grammarian can understand "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment."

All this will come the more vividly before us if we remember that a man who has done wrong has not only to be forgiven, he has to forgive himself. That is the insuperable difficulty. He feels that any external view of his sin, which even the acutest man can take, is altogether partial and incomplete; and, consequently, that any forgiveness which such a man can offer is also imperfect and superficial. And even in relation to God the same difficulty arises, notwithstanding the completeness of his view as the necessity of his omniscience. To have grieved a Being so good, so holy, as God, is felt to be a crime that ought not to be forgiven, and that his mercy can only be extended at the expense of his righteousness. But to this we must return presently.

Have you ever watched the deteriorating effects of sin even upon the personal appearance? Take a youth of extreme beauty, and let him, little by little, be led into wicked practices; in proportion as he is so led will the register of his descent be written upon his face, and upon his whole attitude and manner. Quite imperceptibly, I admit, but with awful exactness and depth. The eye, once so clear and so steady in its look, will be marked by suspicion, uncertainty, or timidity of movement; its glances will not be like sun rays darting through thick foliage, but rather like a dark lantern turned on skilfully to see what is happening here and there, but throwing no light on the man who holds it. And strange lines will be woven around the mouth; and the lips, so well-cut, so guileless and generous, will be tortured into ugliness and sensual enlargement; and the voice, once so sweet, so ringing, the very music of a character unstained and fearless, will contract some mocking tones, and give itself up to a rude laughter, partly deceitful and partly defiant. All this will not happen in one day. Herein is the subtlety of evil. If you do not see the youth for years you may be shocked when you miss the fine simplicity and noble bearing which you associated with his name. This is part of the man's punishment. It is the spot of leprosy on a forehead once so open and unwrinkled, and it will grow and spread and deepen until there be no place fit for him but the silent and inhospitable wilderness.

This punishment, too, seems to get into a man's business and house. It lowers the high discipline which once ruled and ennobled them, and substitutes trickery and eye-service for the better law which once prevailed. Everywhere it touches and debases the sinner; to his very walk it imparts a swagger or a slouch, significant of debased character, and every relation of life it perverts, disennobles, and defiles.

Now a meditation of this kind might well drive us to despair, if there be nothing else to be said. Sin can only aggravate itself and relieve our torment by plunging into some still deeper excess. Where, then, is hope to be found? If there is any way of escape, let us have it pointed out so clearly that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.

I have said that even God's forgiveness, strictly in itself, does not meet the case of a man being unable to forgive himself. That is so, philosophically, but, thank God, not evangelically. God's forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, is not mere forgiveness, however abundant and emphatic. It is not merely a royal or even paternal edict. It is an act incomplete in itself; it is merely introductory or preparatory, as the uprooting of weeds is preliminary to a better use of the soil. It is an essential act, for in the absence of pardon the soul is absolutely without the life that can lay hold of any of the higher blessings or gifts of God. To what, then, is forgiveness preparatory? To adoption, to communion with God, to absorption into the Divine nature, to the witness of the Holy Ghost. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God." And if in moments of special trial "our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things." You will see, then, that if it was merely an act of forgiveness, it would be quite true that man would be unable to forgive himself; but it is "assurance," it is "sonship," it is joy of the Holy Ghost. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation, to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." "To be spiritually minded is life and peace." "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit." "It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?" Thus the soul is flooded with joy. Its daily song is of victory. It is stirred, and ruled, and gladdened by a mysterious and indestructible sense of triumph, for the grace of the blessed and infinite Christ fills the whole heart with sweet content and immortal hope.