Genesis 4: 13 – 14 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

Cain’s lament stabs you in the heart. He was overcome by hate and jealousy and so he killed his brother Abel. When God asked him where his brother was, he lied: “I don’t know,”  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (See Genesis 4:9). In essence he was just compounding the calamity. It is pointless to do wrong and then try to bury the evidence. God did not ask Cain what he had done because God did not know, He asked Cain to get him to confess the sin he had committed. The denial brought judgment of the worst kind – banishment from the presence of the Lord.

The need for confession and a plea for forgiveness apply equally to someone who is unsaved and to the child of God. The unsaved comes confessing that he knows that the sin nature he inherited from Adam needs to be washed away by the blood of Jesus. He then accepts that Jesus died in his place so he can be forgiven and have access to God. The child of God confesses to maintain fellowship. So child of God when you do wrong, go to God your Father and confess it in all its ugliness and ask to be forgiven. If not you will find yourself in a very dark place, cut off from fellowship with the Lord. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). When I read the account of Cain’s predicament and meditated on it, the Holy Spirit explained:

“To be absent from the presence of the Lord is the farthest you can go from the favor of Almighty God. It is the place of futility and unfruitfulness. To then work your own works and try to present them to God is a waste of time. More profitable is the coming to the cross of Christ where his blood has been shed, the blood sacrifice which satisfies God’s standard of righteousness. There you will find forgiveness and new life and a new beginning with God.”