Within these first displays of religion, we see God speak a pure instruction to Cain that is the very foundation of all true religion and righteousness—“If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (v7)

God rejected Cain’s offering for a legitimate reason. He wasn’t being picky or demanding, He saw how Cain’s offering lacked a real goodness in it. And along with this, God showed Cain the way to go forward. He didn’t leave Cain upset and rejected, but spoke wisdom to him, how to find his way.

These same issues play out in our lives today. It is very common that whenever we suffer or whenever God begins to speak to us about living righteously, we quickly become despondent and bitter with God, as if He is unreasonable and legalistic, when the reality is that what we are “offering up” in our lives is not actually as good as we would like to think.

One of the central problems with sin is that we can expect to be accepted without truly doing what is good. Mankind as a whole can be very busy with our desires and plans, all the while we expect “good” to be an automatic outcome, though we don’t actively seek good.

Mankind neglects doing good. We may not actively seek evil, but neither do we make our main concern doing what is truly good in and of itself. We expect that our ways are not that bad, but we cannot say we are “guilty” of laboring day and night purely for goodness and godliness.

“All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:12)

Our attitude is often like Cain’s—we resent God’s disapproval and call to walk in what is truly good, and instead want to be accepted without having done so. We do not see that God rejects our ways not because He is just labeling all people as “evil”, but because our ways truly lack the substance of real goodness, wisdom, and godliness.

And just as God spoke to Cain, so He speaks to every single person in this world, He speaks the very same religion that He spoke at the beginning of mankind—to walk in what is truly good, and then we will be accepted.

This is very important to talk about today because many in the church reject this simple truth in the name of “grace”. They imagine that grace means God removes the call to do well, and instantly grants them acceptance with God without doing the righteous works of God; and many are taught that this is what grace means! Yet this view is a rejection of the very foundation of true religion.

Like Cain, we often resent this call of God to do well. We think God’s call is some impossible perfectionism that could never be obtained (is this not even declared from many pulpits) and yet we do not see that everything God is directing us towards is correction for real lack within us. A real foolishness, sinfulness, and blindness. And all of this culminates in making us empty of any real substance/goodness.

On a hot day when we are very thirsty we wouldn’t be pleased with an empty well and going without water. If we were hungry, we wouldn’t be satisfied if we never found food to eat. There’s a real substance in these things. And this is no different when it comes to the quality of our own spirits. They are either real bread and water, or they aren’t. Cain’s offering didn’t have real substance within it—this lack was the issue surrounding faith. He didn’t offer up a real substance of righteousness and godliness within his offering. And for all of us, this is the judgment on the quality of our persons and lives. They can be found greatly lacking in righteousness and godliness.

This righteousness and godliness is the only real substance. It is certainly not the case that any “righteousness” or “godliness” is substance, but only what is truly pure and light: "For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:9) We’ve seen in many examples how much “religion” can lack this true light, it’s exactly what we see here in Cain, and what we see in Isaiah 1, and in the Pharisees. And it is also a great deal of what we see in the church today.

Instead of light, many people’s religion becomes darkness (Matthew 6:23). And this is WHY God corrects us. We have to allow God into our religion to correct us when we are not walking in right faith.

One of the great darknesses in the church today is this lie of acceptance with God without doing the works of the Light. Instead of taking the path of truly turning into doing what is good, many instead imagine they are accepted with God without doing so.

The heart that such beliefs and acceptance of them stems from is a heart that is upset with God and sees His ways as unreasonable and impossible. It doesn’t see that God’s call to doing what is righteous is the way of life and is good. That it is the way to escape the sin that is lurking and seeking to destroy us. And such people become sullen with God and don’t really consider why God is saying what He is saying. They get upset with God any time they are made to feel any responsibility to do real goodness, and they see God as bitter and oppressive any time He would correct them. Whenever God disciplines them, they cannot see that it is God’s rebuke of them, not in hatred, but to save them from their presumption. And they cannot see that because they are so convinced of God’s harshness, that this is why they believe in such ideas of “grace”. It feels like a balm to the anger in their hearts at the call to true accountability. They feel very afraid of this weight, like it would crush them, and they don’t see that God’s words to Cain here is the actual balm. To shoulder our responsibility rightly each day IS the path forward for us.

To see that God has very great reasons for all He says to us. And the more we walk with God in His ways, the more we will see just how reasonable and needful God’s commandments really are.

The horrible truth is that many of our hearts are just like Cain’s. We resent God’s rebuke and call to walk in true goodness. We resent the very simple truth that we are not accepted because we do not do well. That it is a reasonable correction. And instead of facing it, we try to choose a different path. We may not go out and murder our brother, but our hearts will fill with one darkness or another.

The fruit of these sinful beliefs in the church has been a great loss of real righteousness, godliness, and wisdom in the church. Oh sure, there is much activity going on in God’s name, but the substance in what so many do is deeply lacking. We do not see that the very means of substance comes from following Jesus in this path, and that we can only have this light and salt in us if we do so.