God's Glory Church

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” — Genesis 4:10

In the poem “Witnesses” Henry Longfellow (1807-1882) described a sinking merchant ship carrying slaves. Writing about “skeletons in chains”, Longfellow mourned the many nameless victims. The final stanza says:

This is the grief of slaves,

What are watching from the abyss

Calling from unknown graves

And we are witnesses!

But to whom do these witnesses speak? Isn’t this silent testimony useless? However, there is a Witness who sees everything. When Cain killed Abel, he pretended as if nothing had happened. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – he replied disdainfully to God. However, the Lord said: “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (Genesis 4:9-11).

Cain’s name became a warning. “… Not like that Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother,” warned the apostle John (1 John 3:12). Abel’s name also continues to sound, but in a completely different way. “By faith, Abel brought to God a better sacrifice than Cain; by it he was attested that he was righteous,” wrote the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:4).

Abel is still talking! The bones of long-forgotten slaves also speak the same. It is good if we remember all these sacrifices and oppose the oppression we have witnessed. God sees everything, and His justice will prevail!

What manifestations of injustice and oppression do you know? What is God calling you to do?

Dear Heavenly Father, You are the All-Seeing God. Help us to see oppression when it occurs, and show us how to counteract it.

Author: Tim Gustavson