SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Boundless Bible. My name is David Shapiro. Hey, I'm Javi Marquez. And I'm Jason Holloway. Hey guys, today we're going over. Listen, it only took one generation since the creation of man for man to enter murder into the world. This is a story of Cain and Abel. I am uh glad to be here with you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

Same. We are talking about one of the for my in my opinion, it's one of the most interesting stories in the Bible. Cain and Abel. The first two born humans, according to the Bible. Right? We had Adam and Eve, and they but they were created in the beginning of this, which is what we talk about. Genesis 4. Adam is with Eve and begets Cain. So first the first two born humans.

SPEAKER_00: 0:49

Yeah, let's jump in. I mean, this is this is a uh a really incredible story because everybody kind of knows that this is the story where Cain murders Abel, but let's kind of jump into who they are and and why this would happen. I mean, like I said, I I started with just one generation, but it really didn't take very long for man to hit rock bottom just in terms of of jealousy and you know man, just the the most rotten thing I can think of. Um, so you know, there's two things, there's two words in Hebrew, Yetzerhara and Yetzer Hatov. And what this is, is it's a drive to bad or a drive to good. And the the Midrash really talks about this a lot with Cain and Abel, where you have a drive to good or a drive to bad within you. You still have the free will, but you have a drive one way or another, and we start to see both with both of these gentlemen with these brothers. So it's really interesting. I I think it's gonna be a really good conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:55

I think that's what this story is about, right? Like let's not let's not jump to the end, but I mean the the story is essentially that Adam is now, and Adam and Eve are out of the garden. This is the beginning of them being human. For the first time, they lay together, and Eve gives God the credit for the birth of Cain. She continues, you know, by by giving Abel. And then it, you know, I'm going on through the story. Both of them grow up to become, you know, one is a what is it, a sheepherder, uh shepherd. The other one sows the land. They both give a offering to God, which we'll talk about later, and one is found acceptable, one is not. Um, Cain's is not. Cain then has a bit of a hissy fit. And God says, Why are you upset? And Cain, you know, has his response, and then he kills Abel. And then again, once again, God says to him, Why, why, you know, what did you do? What did you do? And Cain doesn't take the responsibility. He says, Well, I'm not my job to deal with him. It's I'm not my brother's keeper. That's where that comes from. And uh, and and he and God sets him out. God curses him and says, You're set out into the land. So, I mean, it's a it's a super interesting story. Just for anybody who didn't know it, that's the that's the short version. I recommend that you read the real version. It's only what, like 15, 16 lines long in Genesis 4, but it's just absolutely jam-packed with info. I agree.

SPEAKER_03: 3:26

Yeah, I could relate to, you know, we we could definitely all relate, I could say, to something like this, right? That you feel like you brought a portion, you've done your part, and maybe you didn't get it recognized, or someone else got praise for it more than you did. And you know, you're in you're in your feelings, you you wonder why, you wonder why this person is probably better, and then you, you know, that goes down to through a a really bad rabbit hole of you know of feelings and thoughts. Now, I would like to say that I never thought about maybe eliminating somebody for for being praised more than I was, but yeah, the story has a lot of depth, I think, for human condition in it and how we perceive you know being happy for somebody else, or even not feeling that we're worth it in some ways, right? There's a lot of stuff there with Kenyon.

SPEAKER_00: 4:18

Yeah, I mean, I think that the really great story to me, the really great part of the story is they don't give you a lot of information. You know the story, but you're to dissect it with the human nature. And again, this is now second generation, so you're dissecting very complicated human relationships very, very quickly. And when I look at it, you know, there are things I've heard again, mine come now from more of Jewish tradition and reading through the Torah. Uh, and one of the things they talk about is that Cain killed Abel, and it's shocking. It goes, well, Abel's dead, and why would Cain do that? And a lot of them say that, well, Cain was dead inside before he killed Abel. So this is actually the second death. The first murder was Cain murdered his inside to be able to do it. You just said that, Hobby. I don't know, I don't know if I'd be able to do that, but according to Jewish scholars, they go, This is the second actual murder because Cain murdered his insides first to be so hostile towards his brother. Um, nowhere does it say it.

SPEAKER_03: 5:20

Well to lean to see that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:22

Yeah, I mean, look, to lean into that, I think it does say it, guys. Look at that I I read this 14, 15, 16 passages over and over this week, and I and I think it does. I think that I think everybody gets caught on the murder part and they don't pay attention to what happens to it before. It's like they they have these. First of all, we'll we'll we're doing this all backwards, but I think it's important because these are this is the way that people have to unravel this story. Like you start with the murderer, you're like, man, what drove him to murder? Okay, so you see the murder, but now you have to ask yourself, what drove him to that? And why did he do that? And so I'm looking at Genesis 4, 6, and this is coming after the favor has not been given to Abel, right? The favor has not been given or has not been given to Cain. Yeah, he's upset about it. It says he's despondent about it. His what is it, his his character has fallen or something like that. You know, it's like he's definitely upset, he's frustrated, he's angry. And so he says the the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious and why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not what is right, sin is crouching at the door. I love this line. Sin is crouching at the door. It's desire for you, it it's desire is for you, but you must rule over it. So you're frustrated, you're angry. If you dwell in that frustration and anger, it's going to kill you. If you dwell this is free will at its at its core. If you dwell in your frustration and your anger and your jealousy, again, we're gonna work totally backwards. We're we're having like a memento moment if you've ever seen that movie. You know, it's Javi, you're muted. But the the idea is if you if you do what is right, won't you be accepted? And so he gave his sacrifice. So he gave his sacrifice and it was accepted. He didn't say it was unaccepted, it just for some reason, whatever the Bible says, doesn't say it was favored. So he's upset that he didn't get the favor. So Javi said it really well. If other people are doing great stuff and they're getting these rewards and you're going, why not me? This is what Cain is going through. His his sacrifice was accepted, it just wasn't quote unquote favored. And he was feeling upset about that. He was feeling, you know, like he earned more than he got. But then it says, like I said, but if you do what is right, sin is but if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. So you have a choice. You can either fix your despondency and look at the gifts that you have been given. You can look at the at the acceptance of the gift that you've given as enough, or you can, or sin is waiting at your door. It's crouching at your door, and and crouching is a good word too. Like what crouches, you know, lions, you know, pumas, you know, predatory animals crouch, right? Sin is crouching at your door and it's waiting for you to give it an in, and you not giving up your despondency, is you're gonna let it in. And then he does. And that's what happens in the very next thing. The next line is Cain said to his brother, Hey, let's go out in the field. So he gave into it. So so he gave into it. So what do you guys think about it?

SPEAKER_03: 8:18

Well, you meant, you know, when you first said it, David, I was like, that's a stretch that you you're dead inside before you you kill somebody. But now that you guys are kind of breaking it down, I think you're right. I mean, we we see that through even now, like whenever we hear we see like a a shooting or something like that, and I hate to bring it up, but there's always like a what what caused him, what caused that person to maybe do something so drastic like this, right? What are the evidence that we see that he was very, you know, maybe asking for help? You could see that he was, you know, really have some kind of hatred or something like that. We see this kind of play out, and there's evidence usually for something so drastic like that. And when it comes down to Cain and Abel, we see we see this happen, we see the downcast, we see that he's contemplating something, and God is going, Hey, I'm stopping you before I'm giving you counsel before you do anything. Understand that if you give in to the sin, something horrible to happen. Uh so yeah, God is good on that sense too. He was counseling him, he was told him beforehand, and I think God is always yelling at us. It's up to us to listen to that to that scream.

SPEAKER_01: 10:10

And I will see it real quick, David. I I I would even take it a step farther and say this in and this is a super side note. So if you want, skip the next 30 seconds and come back to this. But there's the side note. This is the consistency of God. He's been counseling from the fourth, I mean, he started counseling before Genesis, but he's been counseling, guard your heart, guard your heart. And he and he counsels that through the rest of the entire Bible to the fact that even Jesus in the future is going to say, You have heard it said that murder is bad. I'm telling you that having a murderous thought is bad. It's the same thing that Jesus is saying there that it was said in Genesis 4. The consistency of God has always been your heart begins your begins your action. Yeah. And so if you can, if you contain your heart, you contain your activity. So now we jump on.

SPEAKER_00: 10:56

One of the things, you know, that that you were talking about is the free will. And this is this really is, I mean, if anybody ever doubts free will, this is that moment where uh, you know, it's it's showing it, it's masterful how they're showing the that we are control, we have control of our sinful impulses. But the other thing is because they don't actually say why Cain killed Abel, and there are some people that discuss this and they argue this and say, hey, is it a heart issue? Was it that one person wanted the other person's land? Was there a dispute over a woman? Which some people say there's all these things. And the great thing about this is all of them can be true in our human nature, and it has nothing to do with the cause because it doesn't matter what the cause was, the reaction was what we're looking at. Um, and and going, I don't know if we're there, but going a little bit further, you know, right afterwards, God does exactly with Cain that he does with Adam and Eve, which is in four nine, he goes, Where are you? basically. He goes, you know, he wants to know where Abel is. So he's going, Hey, Cain, where's Abel? Just like Adam and Eve, he goes, Hey, where are you after you sinned? It's the opportunity for repentance, it's the opportunity to take accountability and repent. And neither one of them did. And it's incredible because again, this is now this you know, learned behavior almost of hey, I'm just not gonna take responsibility and who cares and move on. I'm not gonna repent. And I think that that equally, if not more, angers God.

SPEAKER_03: 12:33

Well, it's also taken the just to go back a bit, people really don't want to take the responsibility of what has happened, right? And deal with the fact that maybe somebody's getting praise over you, somebody's getting favor, like in this story, over you, and they go to blame, right? Some of the stuff that I saw, like looking into it a little bit, some people are are are mixed, right? They're going, it's also not you you were saying, David, it's not it hasn't been said why or like what's going on in Cain, but it's also not really being said of why God chose favor to Abel. Yeah, yeah. I mean to K, yeah, Abel over Cain. It's not really said, it's not, oh, I choose him because I choose his offer better than yours because of this. So there's a little bit in between the lines that we have to like figure out or you know, figure out why God chooses that. And people are saying that maybe maybe there was a better offering, right? There was he chose it because maybe this is what I really want, not over yours. But God says after that, and he says this and throughout the Bible for other stories, it's like what does it why are you angry? Like, why does it matter either way? I could choose what I want to choose. You shouldn't be angry at that. You have to learn how to deal with whatever has happened, maybe against you, but has happened in the situation. And I think there's there's some truth there. There's some some things that we have to learn through those stories.

SPEAKER_01: 13:54

You know, one of the things Hold me accountable, hold me accountable to the to the next two answers because I I have an answer for the favor thing, and I have an answer to the why you don't know why why he killed. Here. I think that the favor to one and not favor to the other and not knowing why is the most human experience we can have. It's Job told all over again, except in three sentences instead of 30 chapters. Why was one accepted over the other? Who knows? Right. Why, uh sorry, except I shouldn't use the word accepted, that would be incorrect. Favored. Why was one quote unquote favored? He doesn't say that one was, you know, cursed. He says one was favored and one wasn't. He's it was still accepted, he still loved him, he still cared for him, he still had a life, he still had a career, he still had his family, but but he wasn't quote unquote favored. This is where, again, this is the most natural thing that we know. We don't understand why God does things. We go through good situations, we get favored, we get unfavored, people get favored over us, and we have reactions to that. I mean, this is that that part of the story to me sets up Job later, um, as we as we get into Job. Technically speaking, Job was written first, but you know, maybe it's a callback to Job if that's the case. But I I love that fact because this is the most human experience. I don't know why one person is favored and another is not. Right. I don't know why I did everything I was supposed to and am not feeling quote unquote favored. I don't know. And this story requires that it's not that clear because when it's not that clear, I'm allowed to read myself into the situation. I think that's super intentional. Now, the later part, the the second answer of, you know, why did he why did he kill, again, I don't think it's about why. I think it's about the feeling. What was he feeling? What did he do about that feeling, and why and how did he end up, how did that feeling end up affecting him? And again, so I think that this ambiguity in the story is incredibly intentional, and I think it's incredibly powerful. Because if you said he killed him because of a woman that he loved and that's why he did it, well, all other things are off the table for me to put myself in that situation. Well, as long as I'm not gonna like kill somebody for not loving them or not loving, you know, having a woman that I love, then then I'm not associated with that story. The ambiguity allows me to insert myself, insert my situation, insert my problem, and to still see myself and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, warning signs don't do that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:22

I'll go even a step further, and this is this is kind of getting a little bit deep. And and this is my preface, this is my thought on it. Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, and God did not want them to have that knowledge at that point. What God did next generation is I'm going to teach you something. And what I think he was teaching was one was more desirable than the other because one was a blood sacrifice of an animal, the other was crops. And all he's doing is teaching. So he goes from here, you you're getting all the knowledge on your for yourself and you're wrong. Here I'm teaching you, and you're also acting out on that. I think it's also about us, again, trying to be godlike. I want the answers. I want to know what pleases you, what doesn't. I want to know all these things right away. And sometimes God's just teaching a lesson. And I think that in this lesson, unfortunately, at that point, Cain wasn't there to learn. He was there to be equal or greater than. And that was it. And I think that the lesson that God teaches us day by day, if we bring it into today's day, there are a lot of us that, yes, Javi, you're right. Maybe we're not going to go out and murder somebody at work who's getting, you know, recognized for something that we're like, I've been doing that for three years. Why are you recognized doing it once? Yeah. I might not go right to murder, but we definitely have that feeling inside of like, it's no longer I'm doing the right thing and should hold fast to it. It's you're now doing the wrong thing and I'm angry at you. And that's that's the point where I think God, like you said, Jason, I think it's great because it's not just about a woman or anything else. This is the general human condition. And boy, do we need a lot of lessons on that.

SPEAKER_03: 18:07

I was gonna say now we have to be also I have to be honest too. Hebrews does talk about this. Hebrews 11 4 says, By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith, he was commended as righteous when God spoke well of his offerings. So the Bible does talk about the situation and why maybe God chose favor, Abel, Abel's offering over Cain's, and they're saying that it was just a better offering, like you're saying right now, like the blood offering is just a better offering than maybe crops. Maybe it's tough to hear, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

But I think there's I think look, I think there's again, look, sometimes the Bible is also literal. Sorry, it's also figurative as much as literal. It's it's also literary as well as literal. And in this case, think about it. What's what's one of the greatest sacrifices that's going to come in the future that's going to end up resolving all things? I mean, so maybe it's just simple, like, hey, you give what you have, but just a little nod. It's that the it's the it's the sacrifice of the shepherd that's going to ultimately be the one that I favor most. Not because the other one sucks, not because the other one's bad, not because the other one's not good, but I'm just giving you a little bit of a hint, a little foreshadowing that I I know, meaning God, you know, but God is saying I know that in the future it's going to be the sacrifice of the lamb that is the one that sets you all free anyway. So it's just like a really, really, really early foreshadowing.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

The other thing that the Bible does, and this is just, you know, I think that people, this story is meant to teach a lesson, and I love it because it's not even laid out. They weren't even told this is a sacrifice you need to make, this is how you make sacrifices. We're jumping right into I'm assuming at some point there was some sort of conversation of this is a sacrifice and how you make it. So we're also assuming that maybe one of them didn't hold up their end of the bargain, maybe they did. There's a whole bunch of stuff we don't know. I think it all comes down to it doesn't matter. If something is again, it's super agree with that.

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

Super agree with that. Like we are such rational, logical creatures that we want all the variables to be identified so that we can understand. Like, we want a guidebook. I've been reading something lately. Like, we want a guidebook. We want something where I can go and open the page and it says, What should you do in this situation? And the reality is the Bible. Is not a guidebook in that way. It doesn't tell you, should I respond to this person on social media who said something dumb? Like it doesn't, it doesn't tell you that. But it does throughout the course of the Bible give you the wisdom to know how to deal with people who are being, you know, trolls on the internet, or it does give you the ability to the wisdom in which you need to solve your own situations as they come with their nuance, with their subtleties. And and that's a big difference. And so it it's not supposed to give you what is it, it's it's not a list, right? Of what is an acceptable sacrifice and what's the level and priority of sacrificial level. I mean, it we'll get into Deuteronomy later, but you know, or or Leviticus even. But technically speaking, it's just telling you like sometimes the message is more important than the details, right? The message is sometimes you're gonna give and it's not going to the response, isn't gonna be what you think it is. That's the real thing it's telling you.

SPEAKER_03: 21:37

I wanted to say just throw a wrench in there. I'm gonna throw a wrench in there. Okay. So for me, as I read it and I keep thinking continue to look at it, you're saying that a blood sacrifice is better than crops in some ways. But let's look at this. Cain's job was to be a farmer, to, to, to heal the crop. Like where I'm gonna get, you know, maybe he could kill the animal and sacrifice that, but for him, he's the he's the farmer, he's over the crops, and I'm taking whatever 10% or whatever I feel favorite, you know, whatever I feel that's enough for God to give it to. Where Abel was looking over the flock and he gave what he looked over, and that 10% he gave to, or let's just say tithe, he tied to you know to God. You know, that's not fair for me. I have whatever skills that I have, and whatever I do have is what I have to give. I don't have any blood sacrifice in a sense. So that's that's my argument on that. But to say, wait, I'm gonna let you guys jump in. I don't even want to jump in. So, like, but with that being said, I don't think as much as what was being offered is how much was being offered, and the going back to maybe the heart issue, where it says here, and I think where we at in two or two or three, it says pretty much Cain, Cain gave some of his crops where Abel was given the fat portions and the firstborn of his flock, he gave like abundantly more, you could say, where Cain was kind of maybe holding back some, and that's where it goes back to maybe the heart issue. It could have been when you know, and that that's I say that to say for modern day, right? Like, maybe my sacrifice I feel like is not enough, right? Or going back to maybe a story like Jesus and the I think there was like a poor lady that only had the rest of her coins where she gave up to the temple, where these rich men only gave a little bit, is like, well, she gave more than they did because she gave all that she had, and that matters more than what was actually what was actually the I'm not yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:29

I don't think you're I don't think you're wrong, Javi. Sorry, I don't think you're wrong at all. I mean, I think there's context clues to say those things. If you get really high level, and you know, we we used to call this the boundless Bible because there's layer on layer on layer on layer on layer. We haven't, I haven't, I personally I haven't talked about the layers recently, but you know, one of the things when you move up to a more literal, metaphorical, you know, up to a more metaphorical, literary, you know, macro level scale, they are talking about things versus life, right? It's one thing to give things, it's another thing to actually sacrifice a part of yourself. Now, granted, he's not sacrificing a part of himself, but in the Christian faith, we know that we are called to, you know, die to our flesh and be resurrected in the spirit. We are called to die to our, you know, human wants and needs and be reborn in the spirit. So there's a sacrifice there of ourselves in a certain sense. So it could just be sacrificial versus you know, product. It could, this could, this could be another illusion at the top level to say, I want you to give something that actually takes away from you and actually takes some, you know, some fight and some harm and some blood and some sweat and some tears, and more than just to give, you know, some shekels type thing. So I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying it's one of the things that I think of.

SPEAKER_03: 24:52

What I'm hearing you say that you're saying it's better to give a certain specific item, where for me, I'm saying that it's better to give uh uh a bigger portion to your needs.

SPEAKER_01: 25:02

That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying, I'm saying it has to be something that actually sacrifices. Like it it can't if I have a 10,000, if I have you know a hundred thousand dollars in my bank account right now and I give you a thousand, I don't it's one percent and I'm it's not really anything. If I have a hundred bucks in the bank and I give you ten, that's more. And so it and it probably affects me more. There's more of a sacrifice to be given. It's not about the amount, it's not about the actual physical uh amount or even thing. Like if I give you, you know, 10 bags of rice and I have a hundred, like it's it's not about that. It's like which one is actually going to be sacrificial to me is what I'm what I'm getting at. What which point is gonna hurt me a little bit and shows that I'm giving from a giving heart? That's not about me.

SPEAKER_00: 25:47

Well, that's the thing. We we you know, we're making it's either two assumptions. We're either assuming that God had told them what he's expecting from a sacrifice and they're not doing it. Well, Abel was not doing it on the same level that I'm sorry, Cain was not doing it the same level as Abel was. Or we're assuming that they weren't told that they're just doing a sacrifice, in which case one happens to be more acceptable to God than the other. Either one, I don't think matters. I think it is a again, we want this prescription of do this and we're gonna get this. And life doesn't work that way. And I think what God's doing is listen, whether it's one way or another, the lesson is one is less less acceptable. What are you gonna do about it? Is your heart nature gonna be, okay, next time there's a sacrifice, I'm gonna give more, or I'm gonna give from a pure heart, or is the response gonna be, I'm gonna kill my brother because I'm jealous? I mean, this is I think that that regardless of what it is and how it is, this is this is a great story for us to. And it's funny, because usually I'm the I'm the literal guy. I for this one, I'm really like, this is such a great story of the human nature. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:04

It's a great story too of God's of God's character. I mean, we we have to remember that too. I think God we have to get to the end of the story for that, right? Right. God, I know we gotta get there, but God is he offered redemption, right? He offer Cain, hey, don't do not give in to sin. You have a chance to change your face, right? Change your feelings and do better next time, in a sense, right? He didn't cast them out, he didn't go, you're you're wrong, or or killed them in some ways. He gave him a chance to go, hey, you feel in a type of way, and I I get that, but there's a chance for you to redeem yourself. God is so good, he just gives us another chance every single time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:44

Well, I feel the need to put the disclaimer on all the things that we were like hypothesizing that the lack of information means. It's just hypothesizing. But I I think that that's part of the like meditative nature of the Bible is that they leave these ambiguities so that you on your own time can sit and process them and say, what does this mean? And what does this mean to me in my life, in my walk, in my you know, understanding of what it means to be human. So none of those things that we just said, I just want to call that out are set in stone. None of them are teachings, none of them, they're just like when I sit back, and maybe when Javi sits back and we think about them, these are the things that come to come to light. It's probably because these are things that actually are ideas in the back of our head that we're wondering about. And so the Bible's kind of revealing that. But to move forward to what you were saying, Javi, I agree. I mean, look, we have to look at the end of the story. So, you know, once once God says to Cain, like, what have you done? He says, you know, I'm not my brother's keeper. And he says, but and he says, here's the problem. We're learning so early in the Bible that when you do let that sin through that door, it's going to have penalty. And the penalty is you're going to do something really stupid. And when you do that stupid thing, I'm sorry, son, but there are consequences. Yeah. And I don't like to use the word cursed because I think the word cursed in our Western society has such a different meaning than it probably meant now. It means that there was a there was a penalty. There was a simple penalty. And he says, So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood. If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You shall be restless wanderer on the earth. So there is a consequence. And then Pain goes, Oh my God, that's too much for me to bear. And he says, My punishment is too great to bear. Oh, I just said bear. Since you are banishing me today from the face of the earth, and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me. He basically does the thing like when you tell your kid like you're in trouble, they're like, Well, I'm never coming out of my room forever, ever. I'm gonna stay in my bedroom and I'm never coming out. And then God says, Listen, look, don't worry. You are you have consequences, but it's not the end of your life. In whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over, and if he placed any and he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him. So it wasn't a deadly curse. It was a and it wasn't a deadly consequence, it was a consequence, which frankly Cain earned. Yep. So, and again, take this back to that same, the the same story of Adam and Eve that we just encountered two books earlier. They made a mistake, there was a curse, but he didn't send them out in the world to die. He still protected them after. And this is like the beginning of the longest pattern in the Bible, which is falls from grace and God's mercy afterwards, and his continued protection and provision of that, even though you screwed up. And there's still another chance to fix it.

SPEAKER_00: 30:38

I'll go even further, you know. At that point, Cain goes to nod, he goes east to nod. And the symbolism of that is first of all, nod is not place, it is a theological place, not a literal place. And what that means is a place of wandering. He is forever wandering and homeless in his own brain, but it goes further east. And what's interesting is when Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden, they were sent east. This is now Cain going further east. This is further away from God. I'm going further away from Eden, further away from God spiritually, and I'm going to be wandering in my own brain for the rest of my life. And I'm going, that punishment we can all understand is wandering in our own brain for life, and God offering the salvation from that. And sometimes we're just too stubborn to take it. No, I deserve it. Again, like you said, I'm I'm punishing myself worse, and woe is me. And now he is stuck doing that for the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_02: 31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:41

So that to me is is uh is a far worse punishment than what God was gonna give him.

SPEAKER_03: 31:49

Yeah, that's that's really bad. I think I think one thing also maybe get out of this story is Cain didn't think about the consequences at all. Like he did not think about what this might what kind of like thing might happen after, like what would be his consequence.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

To be fair, he was the first human. He didn't know.

SPEAKER_03: 32:07

Yeah, he didn't know. He just didn't think about it. Cause when he says, I feel like for me, he says, My punishment is more than I can bear. Like, yeah, what do you expect, Kane? Like, you lucky he didn't take your life, dude. Like, what do you expect, Kane? That's like what do you expect? You know, like you just killed your brother, like the fourth person in the world you just killed. Like, it's only four of you guys. Yeah, like there was a there was a comedian that was I was what I was watching, he kind of mentioned this story, and he was like, This is like the worst killing in the world, like this is worse than any kind of war, any kind of like dictator or anything, kind of any kind of disease.

SPEAKER_01: 32:43

The percentage of people you killed is like 25. You killed 25 percent of the world.

SPEAKER_03: 32:49

Like, you know, so it was kind of funny to see that. But I don't know. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, I just wanted to say that like I think when we think about doing certain certain things, we just think about eradicating what's bothering us, and we don't realize the consequences what might happen after, right? We don't think about the courtrooms or the think about the sentencing that we might be facing when we do certain things, and that could be a better worse shock, a worse thing in the world, or even to your world that we don't think about, but we could hurt our families, we could hurt our our friends, our family, right? Anything else within our life when we do certain things. I just say that. I just want to say that.

SPEAKER_01: 33:31

I'll tell you again, I think there's such a such a valuable lesson this early in the Bible, and the nod thing is what like sent it off. I I just had this conversation maybe 40 minutes ago with somebody else, which is you said, David, you go into the land of nod, which is basically being stuck in your head in a in your wilderness, right? And you're you're by yourself and it's a solo, singular thing. I was reading a psychological study this week that said that the quickest way to become completely depressed, psychopathic, and capable of horrible, horribly uh demonstrate, sorry, horribly monstrous things like he's doing is to get in your head and stay there by yourself. Just by yourself, thinking about and and lamenting over all of your troubles and and being crushed by the weight of your own past and things like this. And and this is the this is the human condition. When we spend our time focused, and look how many times God gave Cain the opportunity not to do it. He said, Look, you're in your feelings right now. You're you're letting yourself, you know, be absorbed by this evil instead of letting it go, because that that that sin is sitting on your door waiting, waiting for you. You open that door and it's over. And it was. And then he screwed up and then he did the bad thing, and now it comes on it again. And he's saying, like, the way that Cain had to get out of that place is by yielding to God. He needed to accept that it wasn't about him, that it was about more than him. I mean, frankly, one of the reasons he did it in the first place that he would have killed his brothers would have been out of jealousy, which is a which is a an egotistical thing. It's like, I like me more than I like you. I feel like I deserve this more than you deserve this. So, this again, this whole story at a higher, higher, higher level is about people being egotistical, being shallow, being being selfish and doing only things for themselves. And anybody who has lived a life outside of Christianity and lived it for themselves, or even within Christianity and done it for themselves, realizes how not crazy this story is. It's it's very easy to lose track of what's right and what's wrong when you're the only guidepost.

SPEAKER_00: 35:39

There's a there's a book, it's not canon, it's called Sanhedrin 4.5. And in Sanhedrin 4.5, it actually talks about Abel and his blood crying out and the blood of his descendants crying out forever. And when you read it, you go, okay, what does that mean? That his blood is crying out and his descendants' blood crying out. And I think that this atrocity is one of those things that when you look at Cain living within himself, that blood is crying out to him forever. The guilt, the shame that he feels is there forever. And then all the descendants, this is again, they're they're brand new to the world, they're learning about how things work. And, you know, it again, this is this is not canon. This is somebody else's thoughts of what's going on. But the thought is God is entering into the world the thought of guilt and shame of when you do something wrong, you can repent. I'm asking you, come to me, repent, and and it'll be better. It's not gonna go away, but it'll be better. Or you can make the choice of having the blood cry out to you forever. And that torture of shame and guilt really does. I mean, I I personally can't think of something worse than to disappoint and have the guilt you know on me for my family. So it's something again, not not canon, but just uh a nod to some Jewish scholars who same thing. They they talked about this the way we are, and they jumped in, they go, What what are we supposed to learn about this? And how are we supposed to change who we are as free will in the future to make sure that we don't become Cain?

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

Yeah. I mean, I I I love that. I'm just trying to even like wrap it up in my own head. Like, what is what is the practical takeaway for me? And I think it's like if there's something in your past that is crying out to you that either you have done and are not forgiving yourself, or that you have done to somebody else and they're not forgiving you, or or even that they did something to you and you're not forgiving them. Any any any way that goes, right? The blood cries out of that person, whether it's whether it's your your own blood, their blood or other blood, it's crying out to you, and you realize that you want to wash it clean, that's that's where God comes. That's where God comes, and that's where ultimately Jesus comes, is that you have to only God can wipe away that that stain. Love it.

unknown: 38:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:06

Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel. Who know, who knew it was gonna go there? Who knew it was gonna go there? I love it. So the first two born humans, and that's that conversation gets much more interesting if you keep reading Past 42. So I I suggest that anybody picks this up, reads the story, and continues reading to see how how it continues. But as always, an enlightening conversation, gentlemen. Thank you so much. And for those who listen, we always appreciate, we know there's so many other things you could be doing, and instead you're listening to us. So we appreciate that. We uh we know how much that we know how much that time means to you, and we appreciate that we're a part of it. So thank you for your time. We will talk to you again next week and see you later.

SPEAKER_03: 38:47

See you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 39:06

All right, we can start like this. You ready? We're gonna start with it.