Word of Salvation – Vol. 27 No. 35 – Jun 1982
Is Sin Crouching At Your Door?
Sermon by Rev. William F. Van Brussel, Dandenong
Text: Genesis 4:3-7
Scripture reading: Genesis 4: 1-9
Book of Worship: Psalm 27:1; Hymn 2:1,6; 13; 6:1.3; 325:3 (Ps. H.)
The LORD God had banned Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Their life was no longer as it had been. They did not have that frank, open relationship with God anymore.
Still there was much for them to enjoy in God’s world. One of the great blessings that came to them was that God gave them children. Cain was first and Abel not so much later.
Like all parents they would watch their sons, notice the differences between them, put their hopes on them, and have their dreams about them.
Cain in particular was the first baby-boy ever to be born on this earth. Adam and Eve must have been delighted watching him, commenting on his cute little ways, as all parents would do.
They must have been thinking of and talking about God’s promise, that somehow He was to come to their rescue through their children.
They may have been hoping initially that baby Cain would become the Saviour God had promised to send.
Later on, after Abel had been born, they may have had different thoughts again. Anyway, like all parents, Adam and Eve had been expecting things from their children, of course.
After they had been banned from the Garden, communion with God was no longer a matter of course. That’s why we find the boys in our passage in the process of bringing their offerings to the LORD. Man had to seek the face of God in a deliberate way.
Both Cain and Abel were doing this. Each of them came to God with what they thought was fitting: Cain with fruits of the land, which were fruits of his labour and Abel with an animal-offering since he was a man of sheep.
Obviously, both of them was looking for God’s favour, but it appeared to be Abel’s offering only which was accepted with favour by the LORD. In one way or another they were able to notice that, although we can’t establish exactly how. God had something against Cain and his offering. And Cain was not going to take that! He felt God was prejudiced, to say the least.
Cain, who in the home would always come first, being the firstborn son, did not take it from the LORD that He did not see his offering as the better one of the two.. Of course, his was the better one! He was number one all the way!
That was the way Cain saw things.
Most likely this was also how his father and mother saw it.
And why did they put down his brother, Abel? Cain was always the big brother.
However, God thought differently. He did not look at Cain and his offering as the better. He looked with favour on Abel and his offering.
But no, Cain was not ready to take that. He was extremely angry. You could read it all over his face. His face fell, so to speak.
We can find the explanation spelled out in Heb.11:4,
“BY FAITH ABEL OFFERED GOD A BETTER SACRIFICE THAN CAIN DID. BY FAITH HE WAS COMMENDED AS A RIGHTEOUS MAN, WHEN GOD SPOKE WELL OF HIS OFFERINGS. AND BY FAITH HE STILL SPEAKS EVEN THOUGH HE IS DEAD!”
Abel evidently had learnt to live as a grateful person who realized that he did not deserve God’s favour. That must have been why in the eyes of God he and his offering were more acceptable than his brother and his offering.
The Bible says that God was pleased with Abel and his offering and not with Cain and his offering. Abel and his offering were better! In God’s sight, that was the case.
Here Cain disagreed with God altogether and he had no intention to take that. O no, he was very angry.
It does not say how Abel responded to God’s choice. We have no reason to be concerned about him. But God did speak to Cain. God wanted Cain to find out about his own condition before Himself and God did not speak to him on this matter. to act upon that before it would be too late.
Let us take good note of the moving way in which God approached him: WHY ARE YOU ANGRY, CAIN? WHY IS YOUR FACE DOWNCAST? God wanted Cain to come to acknowledge God’s Sovereign right to choose, to prefer the one to the other for His own reasons, even if that would seem to be unfair.
There was a way for Cain to come good with the LORD. God challenged him, really, by saying to him: IF YOU DO WHAT IS RIGHT, WILL YOU NOT BE ACCEPTED? You have no idea, Cain, how bright your future looks, as long as you go along with what I have decided about you and your brother, Abel. I can hear you and bless you in the position where I want you to be. But otherwise: IF YOU DO NOT DO WHAT IS RIGHT, SIN IS CROUCHING AT YOUR DOOR: IT DESIRES TO HAVE YOU, BUT YOU MUST MASTER IT.
What a verse of Scripture that is! How loaded with meaning! How full of wise teaching for any person who would feel tempted to go and do the wrong thing. How loaded with LOVE…!
God was saying, as it were: Watch it, Cain, you are on dangerous ground! This was a tense situation. Here Cain was in that horrible situation where a man can still make up his mind before it is too late, but the next moment, when that will no longer be possible, is just around the corner; by then you will be completely in the power of the devil; and the devil, well, we know who he is. The devil is the stronger one out of the two at all times, if we are not strongly and firmly grounded in the grace of God.
Can you imagine this kind of situation, when you find yourself faced with a moment of decision not to give in to a certain temptation which stands there right in front of you with all its winning power?
Of course, you can imagine that. Every human being, every sinner is familiar with that kind of scene from his own experience. Who would not be aware of the tremendous power of such temptation? SIN CROUCHING AT YOUR DOOR is like a wild animal preparing to jump all over you…!
Cain was still in the position from where he could go back. His fallen face could have been lifted again! The cruel sin-power is ready to grab you, but the way of escape is still open, for one more brief moment. YOU MUST MASTER IT!
Can you hear God’s grace in those words? As long as God says that kind of thing and that is what He really does every Sunday in church and every day when we read our Bible – He is near to help us DO the right! We don’t have to do that enormous thing by ourselves, in our own strength. If that were the case, we would be hopelessly lost.
How sad! Cain failed to hear God’s love and grace in those questions He asked of him. He did not come around to saying words like these: LORD, it’s up to You; if You say this is the way You want it to be, I accept that; as from this moment I’ll come AFTER Abel and enjoy Your goodness in my brother’s company and in my father and mother’s home.
Yes, for God had not said that He did not want Cain. He had only indicated that He was not pleased with Cain the way he was acting.
No, Cain did not say anything to God.
Yet, he did speak. He spoke to his brother. He took him along into the field and kept up his attitude over against the LORD. He was not going to take what God had decided, and his brother was going to feel that! He was not going to allow God to throw him into a corner. He was not going to accept that Abel and his sacrifice were better than he and his offering. That was just not on!
He had heard the Good News. God had told him what he should have done and how he, too, would have obtained His blessing. But that was not good enough. O no, God’s Good News was not good enough for Cain. It did not accept him the way he was. He had to change. He had to be turned around altogether, to be born again. What nonsense was that!?
It was not that Cain had so much against his brother, Abel. But he had an awful lot against God! When he killed his brother, it was only partly because he hated his brother. Most likely he was jealous of him. But his main anger was directed against the LORD. Cain could not touch the Lord, so he killed his brother instead.
How many people are there in the world today who would love to do something drastic against … God, to hit HIM! And well, even that has actually happened, hasn’t it? Jesus was nailed to a cross by mankind with their downcast faces.
All of us must confess that we have underestimated the power of SIN CROUCHING AT OUR DOOR. All of us have our times when we think that God is wrong, favouring the wrong crowd.
Cain refused to allow God to lead him back on to the way of life. He preferred the way of darkness and death and deliberately chose it.
Even after he had killed his brother, Abel, God still came back to him calling mm to account for the purpose of making him sit back and think and turn away from evil. CAIN, WHERE IS YOUR BROTHER, ABEL?
God had said something similar to his father and mother when they had fallen the first time: ADAM, WHERE ARE YOU?
Whenever God does that, He means business. He means love, forgiveness, restoration. He means JESUS, full salvation.
O may God grant us to hear His voice, to hear it properly. To hear in it the love that He wants to display, the grace He wants to grant.
How desperate things are by the time we have crossed the line of no return; we can still hear the Gospel, but have no way of acting upon it and responding to it anymore, because the moment of hardening has come. The Old Testament tells us of various instances that, when once a man had been hardening himself for quite some time, God would harden such a heart so much that there was no hope left anymore for such a person. And yet, it happens so frequently that people, even church people, covenant-people, give in to temptation, prefer sin to obedience, go for darkness rather than for the light.
The only thing God, then, can say and does say is this: I was all out to save you, but you did not want to be saved. Remember Jesus saying something like that about that hen and her chickens?
This verse of Scripture should stand printed on our hearts with all its urgency of Divine love: IF YOU DO WHAT IS RIGHT, WILL YOU NOT BE ACCEPTED? BUT IF YOU DO NOT DO WHAT IS RIGHT, SIN IS CROUCHING AT YOUR DOOR; IT DESIRES TO HAVE YOU, BUT YOU MUST MASTER IT.
And you can!
By the grace of the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ you can master sin and receive eternal life.
Amen.