His Heart was in the Right State: Spiritual Zombies

Let's not take the word of this confession for it. Let's see what happens to Cain after God lobs him a softball rhetorical question and warns him about the sin that seeks to master him.

"Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.' And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."

And there we have it: the first premeditated, envy-motivated, cold-blooded murder in history. In Genesis 3 we saw the pride of Adam and Eve. We saw their unbelief and their revolt against God. We saw the blame game, cover-up, and plenty of shame. But Cain has just upped the ante big time.

The power of darkness, evil, envy, and a sense of entitlement is now very evident in the system.

Cain is proof positive of our inability to reform our distorted natures. Cain is acting just like every single one of us would. He's a dead man walking. A spiritual zombie—and spiritual zombies don't make a move toward God.

Brothers and sisters, if you know what a zombie is, it's a great analogy of our spiritual condition as the result of the fall. There is absolutely nothing a zombie can do to make themselves a real person. They need some sort of divine intervention.

So it shouldn't be surprising for us to see Cain respond the way he does in the text:

"Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?' 'I don't know,' he replied. 'Am I my brother's keeper?'"

When the blood of Abel cries out from the ground and reaches to the highest part of heaven, God goes to Cain with a question He already knows the answer to. And Cain lies straight to God's face: "I don't know!" He then gives God some attitude when he shoots back: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Somewhere along the way, Cain no longer saw his little brother as a brother to be protected and loved—he saw him as a rival, someone that needed to be cut down to size. "Who does this Abel think he is? Showing me up like that, making me look like a loser. I hate that kid, and the only thing that will put out the fire of my anger is his blood."

So if Cain is a spiritual zombie, it's not surprising that he acts this way.