Genesis 4:7; “If you do well, will
you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
Did
you ever see the movie “The Ghost and the Darkness”? It had Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer in it;
it was about 2 lions that killed 130 people and how these guys hunted them
down. You always got the feeling that the
lions were spying on the hunters and then attacking away from them and that the
lions were outsmarting the humans. You
always had the feeling that these lions were hiding just outside your door
waiting to pounce on you.
There are many examples of this type of
story. Some are comical like “Calvin and
Hobbes”; some are along the lines of Tarzan; even some of the westerns have
mountain lions which attack. You always
have this wild animal ready to attack at any moment and destroy whatever it
lunges at. There is always a lot of
tension as the hero or heroine stalks the lion seeking to kill it. I think that this type of movie strikes at
one of our deepest fears, which is the sudden, violent attack upon us by a
force we do not understand or anticipate.
The one thing that I never understand is why they go where the lion is
and then are surprised, they get attacked.
In the westerns, the horse always senses the lion and balks at
continuing down the trail; why don’t they listen to the horse?
In our verse, God is speaking to Cain
BEFORE he kills Abel. Cain is jealous of
Abel and God knows this and he warns Cain (and us) about placing ourselves in a
place of temptation, kind of like walking where the lion is. Sin (the lion) is always crouching at the
door. God is telling us to be wise and
avoid it. At first, we may think this impossible,
but God is telling us that we know our weaknesses and we should avoid placing
ourselves where that temptation is.
This is a simple example. If you are trying to lose weight, don’t spend
a lot of time in an ice cream parlor. A
truer example may be to avoid those who you know engage in gossip if you
struggle with gossip. In other words,
don’t play with fire.
A woman who was very friendly and bubbly
was also a little more flirtatious than she probably should have been. She never meant anything by it. She liked the attention and the friendly give
and take. Until one time her flirtations
went too far, and she found herself emotionally attached to a man other than
her husband. They secretly exchanged
emails and text messages. She felt
herself drifting from her husband towards this other man. Sin was crouching and waiting to strike and
when it did; it hurt her, her husband, the other man and his family, her
friends and many more. Sin accomplished
it goal-to hurt and harm people.
God gives us the gift of the forgiveness of
sins, and he also gives us what the Bible calls discernment. This is the ability to think and see the
possible outcome and to examine events and look at them with a wary eye. Be careful about things that can be sin
crouching at the door. It might be pride
in our family or in our church. It may
even look like the right path to go but then out of nowhere sin is crouching
waiting to strike. This is why God warns
us to be alert and to not rely on our strength or skills but always look to and
listen to God and his Word for our strength.
We cannot defeat the devil on our own; it is only through God’s power and
grace that we will win.
Dear Father in heaven,
too often we think we can deal with the devil and his ways by our own strength
only to be devoured by sin crouching at our door. Forgive and lead us to place our faith only
in you and not in ourselves. In Jesus’
precious name we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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