Crouching Sin

Genesis 4:1-16                        Crouching Sin

3/6/16              D. Marion Clark

Introduction

Pastor Sam Smith has begun a sermon series in Genesis. Sam’s idea is to study characters in Genesis for this purpose: “to learn how God intervenes in the life of his people to reveal both the source of their problems and his solutions.” By examining the stories of people in Genesis, we will gain insight into our own lives and what God is doing in us.

So far we have learned that God has made man in his image and that he intended for men and women to be his stewards of his creation. We have been made with dignity and purpose. However, that intent has been marred through man’s fall. Sin has now infected man through Adam’s and Eve’s fall. We are now all sinners, and we all share the same penalty for sin. Without this knowledge of what we were meant to be and how we fell away from it, we cannot understand the big story of all the stories in Genesis and throughout the Bible; we cannot understand the gospel and the point of Jesus’ work on the cross.

That is the message Sam has been teaching us. Let’s see how it plays out in the first story following Adam and Eve.

Text

Setting

Verses 1-5 provide the setting.

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” ² And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. ³ In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, ⁴ and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵ but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

We have two sons. They each present an offering to the Lord in keeping with their occupations. Cain is a farmer and presents fruit from his crops. Abel is a shepherd and presents firstborn from his flock. Abel’s offering is accepted by God; Cain’s is not. The clear point is simple: one brother, Abel, did what was pleasing to the Lord; the other brother, Cain, did not.

Moral

The next two verses provide the central moral of the story.

So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. ⁶ The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

We are going to spend more time with these verses, but for now let’s note that God warns Cain to be careful of letting sin get the best of him.

Action

On to the crime.

⁸ Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. ⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?”

Cain callously murders his own brother. His crime is premeditated. He then baldly lies to the Lord. He furthermore callously denies any responsibility for his brother, his younger brother.

Judgment

God then judges.

¹⁰ And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. ¹¹ And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

“The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.” God cannot be deceived. However hidden Cain’s crime might have been, it is not, cannot be, hidden from God.

Cain’s judgment is similar to his father’s with a distinct difference. Adam’s sin led to the ground being cursed, so that where the earth should have easily brought forth its fruit, it will now only do so with toil by man. Even so, it would still produce. Cain himself is cursed with a curse rising from the ground – namely, the blood of Abel – so that Cain’s toil will produce nothing. The result is that he must wander afar.

And yet, just as God does not carry judgment to its full and just extent with Adam and Eve, so that they are permitted to live and even to prosper to some degree, so Cain is allowed to live and is even protected by God from further harm.

¹³ Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. ¹⁴ Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” ¹⁵ Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. ¹⁶ Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Lessons

For our lesson, go back to verses 6 and 7.

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Consider the question that the Lord asks Cain. Why is Cain angry? What has happened? His offering is rejected, while his brother’s is accepted. Because Cain is one of us – a fellow human being – we can easily understand how his feelings would be hurt by God. Indeed, many have puzzled over God’s rejection, which on the surface seems arbitrary. Is God playing favorites?

No, God is not playing favorites. God explains to Cain that if he had done well, he and his offering would have been accepted. We do not have the details to know exactly the issue with Cain’s offering, but Cain himself does not seem to pondering the problem of his offering, which is a problem in itself.

Isn’t the logical step for Cain to ask God where he went wrong with his offering? Should he have offered a lamb like Abel? Was there a heart issue he needed to deal with? Instead, Cain gets angry with Abel! What is that about? Was Abel being an annoying little brother bragging about his offering?

The source of Cain’s trouble lies not with Abel nor with God. It lies crouching at his door. Cain’s trouble is entry of sin – sin that came through the actions of his parents. That sin is now infecting Adam and Eve’s descendants. Already it has taken root in Cain. That is why he fails to present an acceptable offering in the first place. Then we see it in his response to God’s rejection of the offering. He is personally offended instead of chastened.

God now alerts Cain to the corrupting infection taking place. Sin is crouching at the door. Sin is not content with mildly influencing Cain. Sin wants to rule Cain. And if Cain does not get hold of himself, if Cain allows bitterness to grow, sin will do just that; sin will take control of Cain, leading him to become a murderer, even a murderer of his own kin.

There is a chilling scene in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The boys stranded on an island believe that there is a beast in the jungle. The climactic scene is that of one boy Simon, who is standing before the head of a slain wild pig and hallucinates that the head is speaking to him.

“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are the way they are?”

The Beast Sin is now in Cain, and God is warning him not to let it take over but to instead master sin. Cain could repent. Cain could look to God to control the beast within. Instead, Cain yields to sin; he yields to hate; he yields to the now innate desire to go his own way and to reject even the counsel of his Maker.

The New Testament provides a commentary on Cain’s sin.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 1 John 3:12-13

Cain is man. He is the unregenerate world. He illustrates the condition of the human race, what has happened to each of us.

That is where you might protest. “I’ve never murdered anyone.” Jesus says:  

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22).

Do you get the point? It is not the act of sin we commit out there that identifies our condition. It is the sin infiltrating the heart. Cain committed the act of murder out of the murderous hate in his heart. Out of the heart, out of the heart of darkness come the acts of sin. Listen to Jesus again: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person.” (Matthew 15:19-20)

Consider what John has to say about Cain. First, Cain was of the evil one, i.e. Satan. His murder of his brother revealed who he belonged to. Jesus said the same thing to his opponents.

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. ⁴³ Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. ⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:42-44

The problem for Cain was not that he was being treated unfairly. The problem was not his ignorance of what kind of offering was needed. Likewise, the failure of Jesus’ enemies was not of ignorance, not the failure of Jesus to present himself better; their failure to recognize who he was and their own effort to kill him rose out of belonging to the evil one.

But let’s remember the other brother, Abel. He is the good guy. God accepts his offering. The New Testament also comments on Abel. Hebrews 11:4 reads: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”

“Abel…was commended as righteous.” When we put all three passages together, one could take away that there are two kinds of persons in the world – those who are sinners and those who are righteous. Yes, sin has entered the world but it has not taken over everybody.

But let’s go deeper into the Hebrews verse. The context is a presentation of the role of faith in obtaining and resting in the favor of God. The last verse of chapter 10 says that we are to be “of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” The author then takes us through the Hall of Fame of faith holders, showing how, whatever it was that they did, they did it by and through faith. Abel is presented as the first model.

What did Abel do by faith? He offered to God an acceptable sacrifice. Why was his offering acceptable? Commentators differ on the reason; even Reformed commentators differ. More recent commentators point to the difference between the substance of the offerings. Cain offered the fruit of the soil. Nothing wrong with that per se, but Abel’s offering indicates that the offering required was a sin offering – the offering up an animal as a substitute to make atonement for sin.

That is an enticing interpretation. My hesitation in accepting it is that Moses gives the reason for why each man gave their particular offering – Cain was a farmer; Abel was a shepherd. No, it seems evident that distinction lay in this – that one possessed faith and the other did not.

Faith in what? Faith that righteousness comes from God and not from oneself. Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Of course Cain believed that God existed; but he also believed that God rewards those who prove themselves worthy. He believed that an offering of what he produced should satisfy his Creator. “I, Cain, have labored hard for what I bring to you, God. See what I have done.” Of course then he is angered when his offering is rejected, and all the more angered when his younger brother, who is no better than himself, certainly who has not worked harder – “This smug brother gets the praise for what I should have received? Are you kidding me!”

Do you want to be commended by God as righteous? Well then, beware of sin. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. So, rule over sin!

Hhmm…that worked well for Cain, didn’t it? But why would God instruct Cain to do what he could not do? Maybe so that Cain would realize that he could not overcome sin by his own effort? Maybe he wanted Cain to respond with something like…like the tax collector of a parable Jesus once told.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:10-14

We are all sinners. As Romans 3:10 says, “No one is righteous, no, not one.” Our only hope for righteousness is that which God gives to us – the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which he gives to any who place their faith in his Son.

What offering do you present to God? Your good works, your righteousness? Better to offer up your faith, your trust in the one alone who lived a life of righteousness for you and who offered no less than himself to God on your behalf. As the writer of Hebrews says, come “to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (12:24). Come, sinners, however poor and needy you may be.