Lost World: Righteous Abel

This morning our lesson is a biography of Righteous Abel. To get inside God's thinking on this matter, back up to Genesis 3:21. Note four truths about how fallen, sinful humans must approach God:

We as sinners must be COVERED to come to God.
We as sinners can not use SELF-MADE COVERINGS to come to God.
We as sinners must accept the fact that ONLY GOD PROVIDES PROPER COVERINGS for us.
We as sinners must believe that ONLY SUBSTITUTIONARY DEATH COVERS sin.
The word for atonement is kaphar and it means 'to cover'. We run into this word in the Flood account as God tells Noah to 'cover' the Ark with pitch. The idea is to shield Noah from the fury of the Flood he had to find a covering for the wood of the Ark. So God says to us His creations who sin, we must find a covering to shield us from God's wrath. And God says the only shield or covering or atonement HE ACCEPTS is in the form of a substitute.