<TITLE>05. Par 37-44</TITLE>L-37 Seeing that--that, the two boys trying to find favor with God, to come back, because they know that they were just fresh from the garden of Life. And they had fell, on the other side, by the transgression of their parents, had made them subjects to death; just like we all stand, this morning, subjects to death. And they wanted to know how to get back into that place where they could find Life again. And, in doing so, they--they were trying to find favor with God.

L-38 And Cain offered a beautiful sacrifice of flowers and the fruits of the field, or whatever it was he put upon the altar.

L-39   But Abel, by spiritual revelation, revealed to him that it was not the fruit of the field that caused the death. "It was blood that caused the death." So, he offered back blood of an innocent substitute, and God accepted it. And that has been God's propitiation for our sins, ever since that very day. No other way, because if He had accepted on any other basis, then we'd have had to come to that basis, to be, to find favor with God. But God accepted only the innocent blood of an innocent subject. See?

L-40 And therefore, if the beauty and the big places would have been God's acceptance, today we'd... We would have wondered, "Would He come back on the backside of the desert, to this little home setting here by the railroad track? Would He come back here and meet with us?" But if it had been a great cathedral, or the beauty that--that Cain offered, why, we'd find we'd just been talking to ourselves, and to the air.

L-41 But God came on the basis of the shed blood. So, no matter, today, how small we are, how poor we are, or how much we would like to be, offer to God a greater place, but God wouldn't accept it, no more than He will right now, because we're coming on the basis of the shed Blood of an innocent Substitute, which is Christ dying for us sinners.

L-42   Now, the reason that this Blood has been shed, is because, I believe, that man wants to... God invites man to look, but man wants to--to show himself. Man wants to look at what God is trying to show him, on the basis of his--his own idea about it. See? God is trying to show man something, but the man wants to accept it upon what he... the way he looks at it.

L-43 But it's just like anyone wanting to show a scene. There's got to be a reason to show this scene. There's... If you say, "Look yonder at the mountain," now there's something there that struck your attention, that you're trying to ask me to look at that mountain. See? Or, "Look at this tree," see, there is something about that tree that you want me to see.

L-44 Now, God is trying to get man to look to that innocent substitute for a way back. And man wants to look at It in his own way. He don't want to see what God is trying to show him, in this innocent substitute. Therefore, that's what's caused the trouble. Then, when man does, as it was, picks up the glasses, to view off in a long distance, to see what God is trying to show him, he fails to focus his glasses right.


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