Cain’s Plunge to Disaster

“If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.”Genesis 4:7This is the first time the word sin is used in the Bible. “Sin?” Cain must have said. “What is sin?” Sin is more than simply a choice that you make. God is saying that there is a power at work in the world and it is like a wild animal. When you refuse to do what is right, it will sneak up on your house. It will crouch outside the door. Then one day as you are coming out, it will pounce on you, without warning, and overpower you.As time went on, Cain’s anger deepened into hatred. Whenever there was a problem, he found a way of seeing it as Abel’s fault. He began to fantasise about what he would do to him if he ever got the opportunity. It became an obsession, as if some mysterious power was at work within him.Then one day, when he couldn’t bear with him any longer, Cain said to Abel, “Let’s go out into the fields,” and when they got there, “Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (4:8). Then God spoke again. Cain was terrified and immediately went into what we would call denial. “Where is Abel, your brother?” (4:9). “I don’t know. He’s not my responsibility.”But God is never fooled by our denial. He sees all things. “What have you done?... Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (4:10). And God told Cain that he was under a curse. The field that he had worked so successfully would no longer bear crops for him. “You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (4:12).However terrible these words may sound to us, the curse was actually a wonderful expression of the mercy of God. Later, as violence and murder increased, God introduced the death penalty as the sentence for murder, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (9:6).What one step could you take today to protect yourself from sin?