Sin Crouching at the Door

Seeking praise

“Are you proud of me?”

It’s a question that is sometimes asked outright, but more often it is an implied question.

A child looking to their parent. It doesn’t even have to be a young child. It’s probably more likely to be an implied question the older you get, but we still want our parents to be proud of us.

It’s also not just the parent-child relationship. It can be anyone you look up to. Maybe someone you admire. An influential person in your life. You want them to notice you and to think what you’ve done is worth their admiration.

And so you work hard to please them. You figure out what they like, and you try really hard to do what it is they like to the best of your ability.

Now, I want you to think about this from the perspective of the person in whom praise is being sought. For example, the parent when the child is seeking praise.

What is it that is going to impress you and want to praise them for what they are doing?

Let me give a more specific example. Say you’ve got a child in high school, they’ve got a test result, let’s say it’s maths, and they show it to you.

Is there a mark at which you give them praise? Say, if it’s over 90%. Or maybe 75%. Or do you just praise them if they pass?

Of course, every parent knows, the actual mark itself is largely irrelevant. What matters is the effort that went into getting that mark. If they’re someone who struggles at maths, but worked really hard and got 60%, you would give them more praise compared with the academically gifted student who didn’t even make an effort and got 75%.

Cheap but impressive tricks might work on someone who doesn’t really know us, but for the people we care about, you’re only going to impress them by putting in the effort.

As Christians we want to impress God.

We spent the last few weeks looking at Creation. My hope is that one of your main responses is to want to just worship God. Not because you have to. But because you want to.

As you give him praise, the hope would be that he will look on you with delight.

How do we do that?

Well, it’s not in taking short cuts.

It’s not in finding the latest hack on the internet.

If you’re on social media, if your feed is anything like mine, weird and wonderful hacks on how to make your life easier. Some of them might be just plain stupid, but sometimes, the odd one might seem to have merit. We love shortcuts to an easier life, and so why not a short cut to pleasing God?

Of course, when you say it like that, it might sound obvious.

But yet we try to convince ourselves that God must be happy with us because we’ve been pretty good lately and we even opened up our bible last week. Or you might even have a more convincing case - you read your bible every day, you some time in prayer every day, and you give money to the church without even telling anyone.

That might be really good, but what’s going through your mind when you do that? What is in your heart?

Today, we come to the fourth chapter of Genesis, and after we saw sin enter the world last week, we’re now about to see things take a sharp turn downwards.

Cain and Abel

The chapter starts with Adam and Eve coming together and having two sons. First, Cain, and followed by Abel. I recognise this is a minor point, but did you notice that in this first verse there’s an acknowledgment that the child was a result of a physical act, but also of God. Sexual intercourse might be the physical act, but children come from God.

So, we’ve now got Cain and Abel.

We’re next told (v2) that Abel is a shepherd, and Cain plants crops. Both fine career choices. Of course, there probably wasn’t exactly a lot of career options, but they’re both doing what they need to do.

Now chapter 3 might have seen humanity ejected from the Garden of Eden, and as a result, their close connection with God has been affected.

But while it has been affected, they are still aware of God. They know he’s there. They know he is worthy of praise. They want to please him.

Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel… they are now like the small child that want their parents to be proud of them.

The offering

And so, both Cain and Abel make an offering to God. No where does it say that they have to. This is not some taxation system. It’s the child wanting to please their father.

Cain has grown some crops. We’re not told what type of crops. In some ways it’s irrelevant. But it has produced some sort of fruit, and he offers it to God.

Abel he also gives from the work he has done. He gives from flock.

Two brothers. Two offerings from what they have been doing.

What God wants

We also get two different response from God.

Abel’s offering - the one from the flock - this is looked on favourably. God liked this one.

Cain’s offering on the other hand, well… God did not look on it with favour.

What was the difference?

Was God choosing favourites?

If you read it without paying close attention, you might just think so.

But let’s look a little closer.

For Cain’s offering, we don’t get much detail. It’s just some of the fruit. But when we compare it with Abel’s offering, the lack of detail becomes telling.

You see, we’re told that Abel’s offering is from the fat portions of the firstborn of his flock.

In other words, Abel is not just randomly taking from what he has produced. He’s taking the best bit.

The fat portions are the juiciest bits of the meat.

He could keep the best bit for himself and then just give God the scraps. But that’s not what he does.

Now, I know it’s often suggested they were vegetarians at this time, but I suspect this implies they know about the cuts of meat.

But not only is it the best part of the meat, it’s also from the first born.

You know, sometimes it’s easy to think, I’ll just save up a bit for myself, and once I have a good store, then I can start giving back to God.

I suspect this is what Cain was probably thinking.

So what is the difference. Abel took from the best. Cain took from the rest.

Abel made an effort. Cain made a pretense.

On the surface it might not have looked much different. But God isn’t looking at first appearances. The actual product isn’t that important. God looks at the heart. And when he looked into the heart of Cain and Abel, he saw two very different attitudes.

Appease vs Please

One that genuinely wanted to please God. The other that wanted to appease God.

When we want to appease someone, we want to pacify them enough so that we can carry on our life. When we want to please someone, we are not just trying to get them out of the way, we want them to be part of our lives.

Trying to appease God is always going to fail, because it fundamentally misunderstands what God wants. God wants a relationship. He doesn’t need any object, because it all belongs to him anyway.

It’s like when a father receives the father’s day craft from their small child. The father doesn’t cherish the gift because they need it. You cherish it because it’s a sign of the love of that child.

God doesn’t want your things. He wants your love. When you give, he wants you to give out of love.

Cain and God

Unfortunately, Cain did not understand this.

Cain got angry.

God confronts Cain about this. He asks the question of why he is angry, but just like when God asked Adam in the garden of Eden what he had done, this is not a question out of ignorance. This is a question to help Cain try and process his thoughts.

You see, before Cain even has a chance to answer the question, God continues with some more thought provoking questions?

Verse 7, God says: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”

Now, I’m going to suggest the word “right” here can be a little misleading. It can seem to suggest that perhaps Cain technique in giving the offering was a bit off, and if only he did it the prescribed way, then it would be accepted. That’s actually not the implication. It could actually be translated, if you do it in a pleasing way.

God’s saying, this is not because I don’t like you… it’s because you think I can be bought with objects.

Sin crouching at the door

God then paints a vivid picture.

If you continue to act in such a displeasing way, you’ll find sin crouching at your door.

Sin is being pictured as this external character. That’s not to suggest that sin is not part of us. We need to see this as a rhetorical device to help us think about the danger that is before us.

But let’s explore the picture. Sin is crouching. To crouch is to hide your presence. We don’t recognise it. Unless we’re looking, we’ll miss it’s very presence.

It’s crouching at the door.

The door is just one opening away from sin taking a hold. A simple push and everything changes.

You see, here’s the thing… when we don’t please God, we get much more than an angry God. We get something that comes into our lives and takes over. When we don’t please God, that door is about to be opened, we’re not even going to recognise it, and we’ll lose control.

We need to recognise what this beast is that we call sin.

You see it is more than just doing a few naughty things. Sin is a state of being. It takes over. You look at the world through a sin shaped lens. Your thoughts turn inward, where you only think of yourself. Good judgement is impaired.

Sin is crouching at the door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

Only, the effects are too strong. You can’t rule over it in your own strength. Thankfully there’s a solution to that, but more on that shortly.

But don’t be fooled. Sin is there and it is dangerous.

Murder

We’re actually not told how Cain responded to God. It would certainly seem that the warning washed over him, because we’re about to see what happens where that sin that was crouching at the door bursts through.

Cain takes his brother out to the field. There he attack him. There, he kills him.

We have our first murder.

We might think - wow, that was a bit extreme. Maybe. Perhaps. But sometimes extreme things happen. Sometimes, when we allow that door to open, we do things that surprise even ourselves.

Abel is dead. The one in whom truly pleased God, is dead. It doesn’t seem fair.

God and Cain

In verse 9, God confronts Abel again. Another question that he knows the answer. “Where is your brother Abel?”

Cain’s answer spirals him further down. That door is open and sin has firmly taken hold. “I don’t know” he replies. He further adds - “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

It’s an attempt to deflect. To take the focus off himself. Because Cain is starting to feel the pressure.

Does he have to be his brother’s keeper? Well, that’s a bit different from whether he has the right to murder him.

God isn’t fooled. He knows what’s happened.

God provided a vivid image a moment ago with sin crouching at the door. Now we get another vivid image. Blood crying out from the ground.

It was only a few chapters ago when God had fashioned man from the dust of the earth. Abel has gone back, but he still cried out.

In the previous chapter, Adam and Eve’s sin resulted in hard toil. Things are about to get worse for Cain. his fields will not yield not crop. He will be a restless wanderer.

Application

Now, you’ll notice how quickly things got out of control.

This all started with Cain giving a half-hearted offering to God.

Was it that bad? On the surface, it might not seem so. But this wasn’t a surface issue problem. This was a problem of the heart.

This a huge problem for us. It is easy as a Christian to go through the motions.

We learn the right words to say. We learn how to look godly in church. We sing the songs. We let people know we pray.

We’re good Christians right?

This is the problem. It’s not about what you do. It’s about what’s in your heart.

You can fool me. You can’t fool God.

God can see your heart. He knows whether you are doing those Christian things because you want to honour him, or because you want to look good.

This calls for reflection. Examine your heart. Ask God to reveal your motivations, because the reality is, we can even fool ourselves. We get so good at fooling others that we actually start to fool ourselves.

Now if the answer is that you are doing all these Christian things because you want to look good, the answer isn’t necessarily to stop. At least, don’t stop the practices like reading the bible and praying. Perhaps you can stop the more overt public display things you do.

Instead, go back to your first love. Remember when you first experienced God. Remember what it was like to be overwhemled by the goodness of God.

Make a list of the things that you are thankful for. Let these dwell in your heart until worship just starts to well up deep inside you.

Hang around people who have a genuine love of God. It can be infectious.

And don’t just think that this is a nice idea, but perhaps you don’t have time for it.

The reality is, the consequences of not are actually dangerous.

We need God to help us combat the danger of sin taking hold of our lives. When we take God for granted, we also take for granted the dangerous sin that continuously lurks at the door.

God is the way that we keep sin at bay.

God over sin

Now the reality is, this can all sound very scary. It’s scary to think how sin can so easily take hold.

And while on one level, I want you to feel the fear, I also want you to know the other side to this story.

The side where we know that Jesus had come and he has paid the price for us. Jesus has died so that you can be free from sin.

Now a danger still lurks, but it’s a danger that with Jesus on our side, we can move through and make progress. Not in our own strength, but in the strength that we get from Jesus Christ.

So let me state this very clearly lest anyone misunderstands. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you have already been forgiven all of your sins. Sin is still present, but the hold on you is now different.

Mercy for Cain

Now, let me briefly come back to the story, because after Cain received his punishment, we also see compassion from God.

You might remember last week when we saw God show compassion on Adam and Eve by giving them good durable and comfortable clothes. Well, this time, we see God showing compassion on Cain by showing some mercy.

You see, Cain gets worried when he hears he is going to be a restless wanderer. Because he knows he won’t be safe from those who find him.

Now as a very quick aside, it is interesting that there are other people implied even though we’ve only heard of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel being brought into God’s creation. It perhaps implies there’s a lot more things happening that we haven’t been told about.

Anyway, God shows mercy by providing Cain with a supernatural protection. He’s given a mark so that no one can kill him.

Cain doesn’t deserve this. He actually deserves to die. But God is a God of mercy.

Verse 16 concludes this part of the story by telling us that he goes out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

An epilogue

Now, we finished the reading at verse 16. If we were to keep reading, we hear of the offsprings of Cain. He has a wife, which we’re never told where she came from.

His offspring don’t see a whole lot better. Particularly when we get to Lamech where he is now effectively boasting of killing a man - see verse 23.

Verse 25, however, essentially signals something different. Perhaps a new start. Adam and Eve have another child. This time Seth.

Is this going to be a child of hope?

The last line of the chapter has even further hope. People are now calling on the name of the Lord.

Where will this lead? Will people finally give God what he deserves.

Conclusion

There is of course a lot that this opens for us. Things that the Bible will continue to explore.

But for now, I want to leave you with the challenge to search your heart for what truly motivates you. Are you trying to please God or appease him?

Your not going to please God with external actions alone. You will please him when what you give him is a genuine gift from the heart.

Sin is crouching at the door. It wants to come in.

But know that Jesus is there for us. We just need to let him in.

Let me pray...