Genesis 111/42 (Gen 4: 6-8) – Cain and Abel (594b)

So last time we saw Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices to God, Abel trusted God, and believed what God said, and he bought the appropriate animal sacrifice but Cain decided to do it his way Cain thought I'm not going to do this God's way I'm going to do give up the sacrifice I want to give up. Verse 6-7 continues the story. 

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 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 rule over it.”

(Gen 4: 6-7)

The Lord asks him why he is angry, and warns him that, sin lies at your door. He says sin is like a wild beast and has a desire to rule over you, to control you so. Instead of sin controlling him, he should be controlling it. Let me ask you a question, have you ever been angry. Everybody gets angry but God says that we always remain responsible for controlling our anger. It’s interesting to note that anger is often spontaneous. I believe God gives us enough wiggle room in that he understands we might not be able to control the immediate anger reaction. But this still tells me we are still responsible for our subsequent actions when anger raises its ugly head. Interesting it says sin is laying at the door, which suggests to me you have the choice of opening the door are closing the door on anger.Trust me we all need to deal with the anger because look were anger can potentially leads us. Verse 8 

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

(Gen 4: 8)

Hebrew experts will tell you this verse is worded in such a way to indicate that this was premeditated murder. That this meeting in the field was prearranged. So instead of listening to the Lord and dealing with his anger Cain let the anger fester into hatred and into murder which he plotted. Sin entered the human race through eating of one piece of forbidden fruit, had within one generation escalated into violence, death and murder. I think this is deeply significant because it tells us that the initial sin in chapter 3 leads to murder and violence by chapter 4. That that ought to teach us that if sin is in not dealt with it results in violence. Or, to put it another way behind all conflict and violence lies sin. Violence in any culture is always the results of rebellion against God and wilful self-assertion. I believe the bible teaches that violence in a society results from rebellion against God and people demanding to come before God on their own terms. We start down the road of disobeying God and by coming to Him on our own terms  we end up with things like pride, envy, jealousy, hatred, violence and even murder. Somebody once said the first murder was the outcome of the first act of worship service, because these events were kicked off by the bringing of offerings before the Lord. Cain didn't listen to the Lord, he went down the road of jealousy and anger  which then turned to hatred, hatred turned to violence and even murder  

So, what happened next?  We will find out next time.