After Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord, the Bible tells us that God "made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). While the Bible doesn't tell us exactly how God made the garments, we can infer that He most likely slaughtered an animal, which means that the very first sacrifice was made here to cover sin. Some believe that the sacrifice was of a lamb, although, there really is no way to know for sure.
In Genesis 4, after their banishment, Adam and Even conceived two sons--Cain and Abel. Cain was "a tiller of the ground" and Abel was "a keeper of flocks" (Genesis 4:2). The rest of the text reads, "So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard" (Genesis 4:3-5).
This is where our question comes in. The text doesn't tell us specifically why God didn't regard Cain's offering, only that He didn't. The two most popular answers have been that first, Cain brought a cursed offering to the Lord, and second, that God simply chose to not accept the offering. Concerning the first, Genesis 3:17 tells us that the ground was cursed because of sin, therefore, Cain's offering was unacceptable because he brought God from that which was cursed. The second answer is simply an inference from the text resting on the fact that we have no explicit answer, so therefore we need to rest on what we know, which is that we don't know. (This is actually a great answer, but I think it misses an important lesson in the exclusivity of Christ.) In their own respective contexts, both of these answers sound good, but they fail to encompass what is really going on here.
The Bible is clear that sin requires an atonement. You can rest assure that Adam and Eve shared what had happened to them with their sons, and furthermore, shared with them what God expected from them to atone for their sins. If this is the case, then it can be argued that Abel's sacrifice was accepted because it was worthy to atone for his sin while Cain's was unaccepted because it didn't. That is, Cain offered what he wanted to to the Lord, while Abel brought what was required. The lesson is, when we begin deciding what we want to sacrifice to the Lord instead of what He requires, we can rest assure that He will not accept it.
Thankfully, the old sacrificial system has passed away. No longer are we required to sacrifice the blood of innocent lambs to atone for our sins. Instead, Jesus was the "lamb that was slain." Likewise, we need to understand that He is the only acceptable sacrifice to atone for our sins. It is our faith in Him that makes us sons and daughters of God. We cannot decide what we want to give, or what we want to use as our offering. Jesus is the only worthy offering and anything else is unacceptable to the Lord (John 14:6).
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