In Genesis 1 we have the first words, in Genesis 2 the first home, in Genesis 3 the first sin, and in Genesis 4 the first birth (Cain). God is also pictured in different ways in these first four chapters. He is Creator in chapter 1, a wedding officiator in chapter 2, a Savior in chapter 3, and a Judge in chapter 4.
Genesis 4 could be titled the “First Murder Trial.”[1] The prosecuting attorney is Abel’s blood which testified against Cain (Genesis 4:10). The defendant is Cain who committed the first act of murder by a human. God is the judge of the trial.
In Genesis 4, we can affirm that worship exists as can be seen by Cain and Abel’s offerings. Cain was angry because God did not accept His offering (Genesis 4:5). It was because of Cain’s anger that God asked “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door” (Genesis 4:6-7). Obviously, sin did not lie on a literal doorstep, but it was spiritually on the doorstep of his heart. God’s answer to Cain’s attitude is very simple: if you obey you will be accepted, if not you will be denied. Evidently, Cain had already been flirting with sin. God told him that sin lied at the door.
Understanding the tactics of sin will help us defeat it (2 Corinthians 2:11). Every person has his own spiritual house and should be careful not to allow sin to come to the door. Here are three lessons we learn about Gods statement to Cain.
Sin Doesn’t Like Boundaries.
Sin likes to hop fences, break through walls, and destroy rules. There was a standard for worship (cf. Romans 10:17) and Cain ignored it. Evidently, sin had already gotten ahold of Cain before Cain could have gotten ahold of sin! Cain had no fence, barrier, or wall, therefore sin entered. His first sin was not the murder of Abel, but the refusal to obey God’s commands. Sin kept Cain from giving God excellent and accepted worship. When Cain failed to place a wall around his heart for worship, he failed—miserably.
Sin knows when you don’t put up a security system. It easily treks right in if you don’t have one installed (Psalm 119:11). It knows when we:
Forgot to turn the system on.
Turn on and off the system. Sin enters in because we play situation ethics—do we turn the system on in certain situations?
We have a weak system. Weak security systems do nothing to outside criminals. Could it be that we have a lackadaisical view of sin?
If we don’t have boundaries with sin, we should not expect sin to stay away. Cain’s lack of respect for a standard, opened the door for sin to come to his door! We must have boundaries (Proverbs 4:23-27):
With friends.
Entertainment. The problem is that families welcome sin to their door without even recognizing it!
Job.
Sin doesn’t like to put up walls because it does not like to stay outside. Cain’s failure to put up a boundary led him to welcome sin to the door.
Sin Wants to Come to the Door.
The word “lieth” is defined as “stretch oneself out, lie down, lie stretched out.”[2] Once since has entered into the yard, its next target is to the door. Cain allowed sin to come to the door of his heart. God, Abel, Adam, nor Eve were to blame for his lack of security. Once sin enters the yard, it can become:
Deceitful—We don’t recognize it’s there. It passed the security system.
Normal—Maybe we become acclimated to sin. Israel could not even blush at their sins (Jeremiah 6:15).
Sin knows that if it can come to the door, it can eventually get into the house. It knows that if it stays on the porch long enough it will be let inside like a lost puppy. Cain didn’t murder Abel immediately; it took some time. While we do not know how many days passed between his false worship service and his murdering of Abel, we do know that sin was welcomed it by the door. The longer sin stays at the door, the easier it will be to come in. All it had to do was be in a woman’s garden (Genesis 3), on a farmer’s land (Genesis 9), and by a king’s house (2 Samuel 11). An arm length away from sin is not enough (1 Thessalonians 5:22; 1 Peter 5:8); sometimes it requires total removal (Genesis 39:7-12; Matthew 5:29-30).
Sin Will Find a Way in Unless You Sweep it off the Porch.
“Where there is a will there is a way.” Proverbially, sin has a will, therefore it will do what it can to find a way into our hearts. Sin never stays on the porch. It will either come inside eventually or the person will sweep it off their property. Cain should have taken drastic measure to get sin away from his door. Instead, he opened the door.
The moment we open the door to sin there is nothing that sin will not do to us. “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, cost you more than you want to pay, and tell you more than you want to know.” Note this expressed in Cain’s case:
Sin took Cain to murdering his only sibling—farther than he may have originally planned.
Sin kept Cain in the field one minute too long—kept him longer than he wanted to stay. What if he had just ran?
Sin cost Cain a perpetual punishment (Genesis 4:12-13)—cost him more than he wanted to pay.
Sin taught Cain how to be a murderer and about the greatness of its consequences (Genesis 4:13)—told him more than he wanted to know. Some murderers, adulterers, homosexuals, and thieves wish they never had experiences in their sins.
Sin caused Cain to commit irreverence in worship, perjury, and murder. Sin entered in the door and destroyed everything. What will sin’s lying at the door cause you to do?
Sin is a disease, it is not imaginary. If sin lies at your door, what will you do to rid yourself of it? Thankfully, sin doesn’t have to get close to us if we do not let it. James wrote, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Don’t let sin lie at the door, or you will lie at the door of sin!
Endnotes
[1]Allen Webster.
[2]Brown-Driver-Briggs.
コメント