Do you remember the — Luke 18? The publican went into the temple to pray with the Pharisee. And he was “…beating on his breasts, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’” And the text says he wouldn’t so much as do what? “Lift up his eyes.” He was humiliated. But then, because of his humiliation and because of his honest repentance, he was forgiven. And the man went home justified. Well, here is a man that was also bowed down. He’s bowed down not in contrition and brokenness; he’s bowed down and slumped in anger, fury against God and his brother. And God offers forgiveness: Just do what’s right; just believe Me. Just do what I told you to do with a right heart; be penitent, and I’ll lift up your face. God would have applied right then and right there the sacrifice of Jesus, who wouldn’t die for thousands of years. God would have still applied the sacrifice of Christ to Cain and forgiven him, if he had repented.
On the other hand, Verse 7: “If you do not do well,” or if you do not do what is right, you haven’t seen anything yet. “Sin is crouching at the door.” And sin is depicted like a beast of prey, like a rapacious lion: “… And its desire is for you, and you must master it.” Boy, He says: You’ve got a choice. You can do what’s right — which means acknowledge your sin, acknowledge your self-righteousness, acknowledge your wretched hypocrisy, acknowledge that you have not been willing to see yourself as a sinner — and then obey what I told you and bring a proper sacrifice to Me. And you do that, and your face will be lifted up in joy. But if you don’t do that, “Sin is crouching at the door” like a predatory lion, and it’s going to rip and shred you, and you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life trying to control it. Reminds us, doesn’t it, of 1st Peter 5:8? Satan goes about “like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”
If Cain doesn’t repent in faith, if he doesn’t trust God to save him and not his own righteousness, if Cain doesn’t admit his disobedience to the prescribed heart attitude of faith and obedience to the prescribed sacrifice, if Cain doesn’t do that, if he doesn’t do what’s right, then sin, like a lion, is just waiting “at the door” to pounce and try to destroy him. And he’s going to try to have to master that. So essentially, his self-righteous, impenitent, disobedient response will make him vulnerable to the deadly power of sin. God gives him a choice. He says: You can either repent and do what’s right, and I’ll forgive you and your face will be lifted up. Or you can just keep doing what you’re doing and just hold onto your sin, and you’re going to fight it all your life, as it’s going to be like a hungry lion waiting to chew you up. And your whole life is going to be a battle to master sin.
By the way, that is the same phrase at the end of Verse 7 that is used over in verse — Verse 16 of Chapter 3. Remember that? The curse was on the woman. “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” It’s the exact same phrase. And this describes the curse, which is the conflict of marriage. He says to Cain: Look, if you don’t do what’s right, then you’re going to live your life trying to master sin, and sin is going to be like a predatory lion trying to devour you, and you’re trying to control it. That’s how you’re going to live your life, unsuccessfully. And that’s the curse. The curse is the woman is going to have a sort of predatory desire toward the man, and he is going to have to battle to subdue that. That’s the conflict of marriage among the unregenerate. We looked at that in detail at the text. The curse on the marriage was conflict; the woman trying to get control; the woman being, as it were, the predator, trying to pounce and take every inch of power, territory she can get, and the man constantly trying to subdue. And that’s the conflict of marriage among the fallen, only to be really reversed in the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The same is true in the personal life. Either you come to God and your sins are forgiven, and you’re delivered out of that realm of sin into the world of righteousness, or you spend your whole life in a losing war, trying to master this lion that wants to chew you up and spit you out. How — how can a hopeless sinner ever gain moral control over his life and defeat sin? Can’t, right? Can’t.
So God says to Abel: Either you come to me and do what’s right, or you’ll lose the battle your whole life. You have a choice. Sin was deeply embedded in Cain. He was born a sinner because his parents were sinners. Sin was deeply embedded in him. It was inherited, and it was actual. Yet, he wasn’t inevitably to live under sin’s mastery.
Same with us. We’re born sinners; sin is in us. But it’s not inevitable that we be always mastered by sin, unless we choose not to do what’s right. If we come to God in repentance for our sin, embracing the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then we are triumphant over sin. Those are the wonderful, wonderful promises of the Bible in many scriptures. But the one that always comes to my mind when I think about that is the 6th Chapter of Romans Verse 12. “Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts. Do not go on presenting the members of your body as — to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you’re not under law but under grace.” When you came under grace, sin was no longer necessarily your master. So don’t let it master. You can control it. But in the case of Cain, if you don’t do what’s right, if you don’t embrace true worship, you’re going to have a predatory lion crouched at your door your whole life, devouring you.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
