Redirect - "to change the direction or focus of". This is a perfect example of redirection. Someone does something wrong. Another does something right. The one who did something wrong gets mad at the person who did something right. That person decides that destroying the person minding his own business and just serving God is the right thing to do. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Somebody is watching. That somebody is God. Cain killed Abel. There is no escape. "Where is Abel?", God asks. God asks a similar question in the Garden of Eden. Look in Chapter 3:6-8. "Where are you?", God asks Adam and Eve. Does God know where Abel is? Sure. Does God know where Adam and Eve are? You bet. Purpose of the questions? To get to the conscience (the inner sense of what's right or wrong in one's conduct or motives). Did the guilty confess? Not really. Adam explained that he heard God in the garden and "I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid". Cain's answer to where his brother was - "Am I brother's keeper?". Has your child ever answered you in a similar way under somewhat similar (but not as big) circumstances? Even better. In 3:11 Gods asks Adam, "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?". The answer that has been passed from generation to generation - "She made me do it!". I'm thinkin' Cain felt the same way - "It's Abel's fault I killed him!". Cain's sentence is similar to his father's sentence, but one step worse. Not only will he till the ground, but the ground won't produce. He doesn't just get kicked out of an area, but he is sentenced to wandering the earth. It's also interesting that Cain felt and understood that he lost the presence of God. His parents felt that as well. The worst of the worst - no presence of God. Can you imagine? But blood cries out. What is the blood crying? It's crying out for it's right to live and to be alive. Murder is referred to many times in the Bible as "blood crying out". The murder can't be hid. It cries for justice. And justice it receives. You might think that the mark God puts on Cain to protect him from death is a good thing (see 4:15). I'm not sure. God is protecting his judgement. Cain will serve his time. No one has the right to take another's life. Life begins at conception and that life has the right to life.
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