<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Our Best Intentions

Father in heaven, thank you for this time.

Thank you for your grace and your mercy towards us.

And now Lord we've come to that time where you must be lifted up, where you must be heard.

And so I pray that you help us to be silent but help us to be attentive as well and help us to hear the voice of your Holy Spirit speaking to each and every 1 of us.

Guide us and lead us we pray in Jesus name we pray and Ask.

The title of the sermon this morning is the best or our best intentions.

You know when it comes to New Year's resolutions we always have good intentions, good desires.

We don't have bad New Year's resolutions.

We don't go and have a New Year's resolution where we want to be the worst person in school or the worst person in college and aim to be kicked out of school.

No, no 1 has such a New Year's resolution.

We don't have intentions to go and rob a bank, that's not our aim for that year, or to kill somebody, right?

Usually all our resolutions are good ones.

But research shows that we rarely live out our most earnest intentions.

It's important to have good motives and good intentions otherwise even the good becomes bad.

When our motive for befriending someone is so that we can get help when they need it, when we need it, it may seem like a good intention at the beginning, but really there is clearly an ulterior motive.

And our motivations and intentions, they need to be pure.

However, what I want to show you today though, is that even the best of intentions can only take us so far.

But you know good intentions, they are able to bring forth the worst sorts of evils.

You know, I was traveling and I've traveled about 40 countries preaching the gospel and there was 1 mission trip that I was on And I'm not gonna say the the country right now, but you know as I was walking by I saw this big Billboard, it was just plain white and on it.

It had these wonderful words written a better world is possible And at the very bottom right of that billboard was the author's name or the person who came up with this idea for this billboard signed Fidel.

I was in Cuba and you know when you look at that it sounds like a good saying, a good intention, striving for a better world But that really is the ideology in a sense of communism.

It was a seemingly established on good principles, good intentions.

They were trying to get rid of the different hierarchy in social classes, such as the upper and middle and lower classes, maybe just to make everyone common.

That's where communism came from, the word, right?

Maybe to try to get rid of poverty, right?

And it seems like good intentions, however these seemingly good intentions, out of it has spawned the worst of evils in this world, corruption at its worst.

You know friends, our good intentions only take us so far.

I want to take us to our first scripture this morning.

We're looking at a few stories in regards to this understanding, our best intentions.

Our first text is found in Genesis 4, verses 1 and 2.

And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

The 2 first children of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.

Abel was a shepherd, he took care of the sheep.

And Cain, he was a farmer, He took care or grew crops and fruits and vegetables You see very different in character and very different in occupation as well Let's continue the story Verse 3 and in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering You see Cain he brought his very best.

He probably brought the first fruit, the sweetest fruits, the best crops, the most perfect ones.

He was a shepherd, so he brought the young lamb that was perfect, it was spotless, There was nothing wrong with this lamb.

And yet the Bible says that God only had respect.

The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

Because the fruit and the vegetable did not symbolize the Savior that was to come 1 day and redeem us from the sin that we had gotten ourselves into.

It needed the life of a person and so fruit and vegetable some might argue that it has life and it does in a sense but not the life that God breathed into the breath and into our nostrils like the animals do as well and so even though Cain He brought the best of His fruits, the best of His vegetables, He had the best of intentions.

But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect and Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell and the Lord said unto Cain why are you wroth And why is your countenance fallen?

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?

And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

You know, God actually came and spoke to Cain himself.

If he didn't know about the correct sacrifice, he definitely knew about it now.

And so Cain was not in ignorance, but God, He came to talk to Cain and he warned him that if you did not change, sin was lying at the door.

Verse 8, And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him, Cain would rise up to kill his brother and become the first murderer.

He brought a sacrifice even though it wasn't a blood offering but yet he still went against God's desires.

You see, friends, good intentions can go against the will of God.

And when these 2 are pitted against each other, Our intentions, our good intentions, versus the will of God, our good intentions will ultimately get in the way of righteousness and sin lies at the door.

The good intention will ultimately lead you down a path that we ourselves never expected or desired to go down.

And Cain, he ends up killing his brother.

Well, you might say, doesn't God look at the heart?

Doesn't he care about what we desire and our intentions and our motives?

And of course, God looks at that and he takes note of it.

But what does our good intention lead us to ultimately?

In this case, it led to the death of Abel and Cain becoming a murderer.

And so even though he had the good intention, What I'm trying to say is that good intentions only take us so far and we have to take a step back and we have to assess how good that intention was based upon what followed it, what came after.

Communism seemed to have a good intention, a good desire, but it doesn't have a good outcome, does it?

Cain, he seemed to have that good intention, worshipped God, brought sacrifice, yet God didn't accept it because it was the wrong type of sacrifice.

It started off with good intention, but when it wasn't accepted, it showed that He wasn't willing to be corrected.

You know, there's a saying that goes like this, The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We may mean well, friends, but the end product may be disastrous.

Back to Menu

Our Best Intentions

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine