We read the Word of the Lord this morning. We'll be turning to Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4. And we will read from Genesis chapter 4 verse 3 and we will read through verse 16. Genesis 4 verse 3. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering. But for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. Cain told Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth." Cain said to the Lord, "'My punishment is too great to bear. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden. and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.' So the Lord said to him, therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." Father, we thank You for Your Word, Lord, and we plead with You this morning that Your Holy Spirit would teach us, Lord, that we can see what You would have us to learn from this ancient passage, Lord, and we could see the deception and the cunningness of sin. Lord, and by your spirit that we would be quick to repent, Lord, and stay on guard and stay up meditating at night and be on watch in the night hour for the own sin that's lurking within our hearts. Lord, and we thank you for sending your son to come and redeem us from all these curses and redeem us from sin. As this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Now there's many topics that we could choose from in this long passage here in Genesis 4 from verse 3 through 16, but our main concentration this morning will be on verse 7, namely this verse here. If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. So Lord willing, this morning we'll get a better understanding of the deception of sin and the power of sin. The stealth of sin, the craftiness of sin, its deception and its ultimate destruction. We'll be better equipped through the Spirit to know to be on guard against all these even little slight or so small looking sins within our own heart. First, we'll look at the stealth of sin. We'll look at why Cain got angry. Second, we'll examine the lust of sin or its desire for humanity. And then lastly, we will see how Abel points us to Jesus Christ and how His finished work saves us from all these curses of sin. And so we're just going to slowly work through the verses. So please read with me again verses 3-5. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became angry and his countenance fell. And now the question that immediately rises is just why did God reject Cain's offering and yet accept the offering of Abel? And many theologians have offered many different answers to this question throughout the ages. And the first one that they've offered is to say that Abel's offering, or his sacrifice, was one of blood. You see, Abel brought an animal. When he offered it, it had a blood offering. And Cain's sacrifice was one of fruit, or his fruit of the ground. And indeed, the Bible does say that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins there in Hebrews 9 verse 22. So at first glance, this answer sounds convincing, but we cannot be certain about this conclusion. Because nowhere before this verse in Genesis does the Lord give any specific commands about how these two ancient men were to give their offerings. So if the Lord never required an offering of blood specifically, we shouldn't assume that this is the reason for Cain's rejection. In fact, grain offerings are perfectly fine, according later on in Leviticus chapter 2 and other places. They were to give the grain, the fruit of the ground, to the priest and put it on the altar and offer it up in a quote, soothing aroma to the Lord. But I'm saying that just because Abel had the blood and Cain had the grain is not a sufficient reason why Cain was rejected. There's also a small clue in verse 3 and 4 that Cain brings his offering of the fruit of the ground period to describe it, but with Abel it said that his offering was the firstlings of the flock and of their fat portions, seeming to give a slight difference between that Abel gave the best he had, he gave the first fruits, and Cain was possibly more nonchalant that he just happened to brought the latest crop he had. But all this speculation is cleared away in the New Testament. The answer is Cain simply did not love the Lord. Cain practiced wickedness, and it showed in his offering. Turn with me quickly, or I'll read it to 1 John 3. 1 John 3, verse 11. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. Amen. And also in Proverbs 15, verse 8, it says, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. So we see that Cain's deeds were wicked, and therefore Cain hated righteousness. Cain's offering to the Lord was half-hearted. This word offering is minhah, it's translated as offering, and the word for sacrifice or atonement is korban. So this idea of an offering, a thanksgiving, a dedication offering, is what Cain came and gave half-heartedly to the Lord. I say that to show that this offering that these two men gave was a symbol of devotion to the Lord, a symbol of appreciation, a symbol of thanksgiving to the Lord, not necessarily a sin offering. This was out of the generosity of their heart, this offering, rather than atonement. And I'm showing that to show Cain's half-heartedness in this. It would be as if a man gave a wedding ring. It doesn't matter the cost, how good it was, but yet he was having an affair the whole time that he was proposing to this woman. It doesn't matter how good the offering is, this emblem of my dedication to you, if your life doesn't match your devotion. And so that's why John says his deeds were wicked, didn't matter about the offering, is why he was rejected. So we see Abel, who strove against sin and followed the Lord wholeheartedly, was sure to give the best of his flock, showing his overflowing love and thankfulness to the Lord. And we see Cain here, who was not really all that thankful, who continually did wickedness before the Lord, and he just brought whatever he happened to give. He was just there to show an outward show or going through the motions of an affection. And so let us not fall into this same trap when we give our offerings to the Lord, whatever it may be. The offering is an outward token of the inward reality. We're doing this as an expression. And it doesn't matter how big or how small the token or the offering is. A parent will cherish a birthday card they get or some sort of card they get from their own child, even though it's crinkled up and the letters are squiggly and all the words are misspelled. They'll appreciate and cherish that handmade one of the child who loves them rather than some fancy sparkly card from Hallmark store given and sort of from whoever. So I'm saying that the offering should reflect the heart and the Lord will regard those offerings more than this half-hearted, I got a nice whatever offering. But why is it so? There's more love and care put into the handmade card expressing the heart, even though it is not so glamorous. This is why Cain's offering was rejected. And so the Lord could ask, why are you bringing this offering of thanksgiving, Cain? Whatever the reason, it was not out of gratitude for the Lord, giving thanks to the Lord for all He had provided. Cain was not there doing that. Cain was not there as an offering, but more of a payment. He came to pay off God, to keep things moving along as they have been. Cain had no eye for the sin in his life. He had no eye that God had given him all these things. He had no idea of thankfulness. He wasn't there to praise the Lord. He was there to make some sort of payment. I did wrong. I paid you off. It's a transaction. We're good, God. His heart's not in it. There's no love in it at all. And so this is why he begins to get mad. He thought, okay God, You gave me all this stuff, I worked, I tilled the ground, and I paid You some of this, and You give me this in return. That's why his countenance fell. He's like, I work, now You work for me. Let's read verse 5 again. But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell. And we're not told how exactly Cain knew that his offering was rejected. There may have been no sign of any kind, or there could have been a voice from heaven, or there could have been no voice. Or perhaps Cain could just tell that the Lord had stopped blessing him as He had been. Perhaps Cain's crops were not going as good, he'd just have one catastrophe after another. But whatever it was, Cain could tell that the Lord had withdrew from him. And what does he do? He doesn't become sorrowful and repent. He becomes angry. He feels ripped off. I come in here and paid with my hard-earned fruit, and you reject me. Cain could have bought all the fruit of the planet, and God would have still rejected it. Remember, he wants a sincere, loving heart rather than offerings and sacrifice. And now before we all bash Cain, realize that we've all been there at one time or another. Perhaps we had a rough morning getting to church, and next thing the offering plate is passed in front of us, and we fail to realize the significance of what we're doing, that this is an offering meant to show our love of God, not a mandatory payment transaction paying God off as Cain thought. And then imagine if the plate comes around and the Lord were to let us know right there that this one was accepted and this one was rejected. I think I'm not immune to some of the feelings that Cain would have felt. You start to rationalize in your head, this one has so much of a more easier life than I have. Everything's paved out for him. He's not struggling with money, and da-da-da-da-da, and you accept him, and now you disregard me. And that is this crouching of sin lurking and building up already. And this resentment that developed toward those who offered righteously could easily grow in our own hearts. And so this story is not written for us merely to demonstrate how bad Cain is, but is to warn us that that little bit of resentment in ourselves is in us as it was in Cain, and we must be on guard against it. Let's read verse 6 and 7. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it." So this first phrase here in verse 7, Believe it or not, I came across an old English Baptist, particular Baptist or Calvinistic Baptist, who does something like our pastor does. He teaches the doctrines of grace and publishes books. His name was John Gill. And one of his enemies wrote a long book showing proof texts against the doctrines of grace, sort of much like a Pelagian or Arminian, that man is neutral and he can do good or bad and it's left up to his choice. And the man attacking John Gill used this verse here, where it says, if you do well, will your countenance not be lifted up? And he tried to attack the doctrines of grace, Reformed theology, and so on. And John Gill wrote back, in a book called The Cause of God and Truth. And this is what he says about Cain being one man arguing that Cain's neutral here, and here lies the choice. You can do good and be lifted up, or you can do bad and sin crouches at the door. But in reality, He had the choice. He had the power in His hand, but He had no power in His heart. Sin was already in His heart. And so this is a quote from John Gill. Men have equal power had they had in heart a will or an inclination to go to a place of divine worship or to a tavern or an alehouse. But it's easy to observe that persons oftentimes have it in the power of their hands when they have it not in the power in their hearts to do a good work. They may do these things which externally in appearance as to the matter and substance of them may be good, like Cain did with his offerings, but they must be done in obedience to the will of God, from a principle of love to Him, must be performed in faith in the name of Christ and to the glory of God. And so Cain could have chose, but he had no ability to since he didn't want to. He loved sin so much that that's what always he chose, to the point where he hated righteousness so much that he killed his own brother. So far we've seen this build up to our phrase in verse 7. And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. And this leads us to our main takeaway from this morning. The Lord is warning us all that sin is hiding itself within right now. As we've read, sin has been there all along, stirring the anger and resentment in Cain. And you see it crouches like a panther or a lion, laying low out of sight, waiting for the right time to pounce. Every little grudge we feel and hold against other people is actually murder. That little thing of anger over there in the corner, it's small, it's out of sight, it doesn't move, it hasn't bothered you in a while, and you tend to look past it. That's the sin crouching at our door. It doesn't look dangerous, but in reality, it's a giant beast, and its desire is for you, waiting to control you. This is the nature of all sin. One little spark of a little match can burn down the whole house. This is the nature of all sin. All feelings of a little lust is actually in reality hiding a great beast of fornication and adultery. Every little feeling of hatred is a crouched down monster of murder hiding itself from you. Every feeling of covetousness, envy, gluttony, and pride is actually idolatry in the corner waiting to have you and capture you. And think for an example of Frodo Baggins in the movie The Lord of the Rings. The youngster is listening to Frodo Baggins, Lord of the Rings. In the beginning, the great wizard Gandalf comes to the little hobbit and he's telling him about this little ring that's so powerful and that the entire earth is all seeking this little ring. And he's explaining how this little average thing is extremely powerful. and how every single person who's ever wore this ring has been corrupted by it and is dead now. And at first, Frodo doesn't believe it. How can this little thing, this little ring, drive men so crazy to the point of death? It's because its power is crouching. The power is hidden like sin. It crouches to look small and harmless until you take the bait and put it on. It takes you captive, and then from there it makes you crave more and more until you will do anything to have it. The evil wizard and Lord of the Rings sends out his ghost and his whole army, never resting, completely enslaved to this ring that looks like nothing, but has drove them all insane. In the ring itself, Gandalf warns Frodo, the ring wants to be found. The wizard made it to where the ring is crying out to go back. And so, Frodo realizes this throughout the movie, that all of his friends start to betray him. and go to kill him, and they have to resist the temptation of this innocent-looking ring. And even at the end of the series, when Frodo and the monster are over the lava, Frodo cracks to the temptation, and he would rather die than drop down the ring and him and the monster fall over the cliff, but he's saved. but that ring, that little sin crouching itself, caused him to rationalize, called Cain to rationalize, until the point where he was so enthralled that he would give it all away, everything, all relationships, everything, for this one thing. And same thing with that little sin that we must bear with us. It's crouching, always waiting for you to slip. Its desire is for you, but you must master it. That's how sin is always crouching. Now we'll consider this word desire, or sin's desire for you. We read in verse 7 that it's desire is for you, but you must master it. And to demonstrate how serious and unrelenting this evil enemy of sin is, the Lord uses an analogy of marriage. The nature of sin is such that it never leaves us completely until the next age. As a husband never leaves his wife in this age, becoming one flesh. Let's turn back a page in Genesis 3.16. Genesis 3.16, to the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children, and here it is, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. It's the same thing as sin here. Sin is desiring Cain, but Cain must rule over it. And so He uses that word from the marriage. And to show that this always, as Frodo had to carry the ring that only he could bear, you must bury this little bit of sin, but always be on guard for it. He's always watching out for the enemies coming to pounce on him or even in his close circle. And I've looked at this word, desire. This word is for the desire for the woman there in Genesis 3.16. This desire is for your husband as a drive to usurp his authority. The wife is cursed here, away from her original innocent humility. She began with perfectly innocent submission to her loving husband who perfectly loved her. The perfect love of Adam and perfect submission of Eve is gone after sin. just sinful conflict the rest of their days. This word desire is used here, and the word desire is used in the Song of Solomon, where it's the love song, and he says, I greatly desire my beloved, more of an intimate, passionate type desire. But I think this word is used here that, as in Genesis, with the curse, and the conflict, and the marriage, that it's appropriate to view sin this way. As sin is always there, any little crack, it's always crouching, waiting to come through. And so the word for desire in Genesis 4-7 was written in Hebrew, but before it came to English, they translated it into Greek. And the Greek word there for Desire is epithumia. Thumos is will or desire. But when you add the prefix to epi, so epithumia, it means over the top, on top. You've heard the word epidermis. So dermis is skin. Epidermis is the top. So the word epithumia is like an overflowing, out of control, uncontrollable passions. And this is what sin feels to you. This is the desire, the overflow to have you. and it throws out all other desires, cravings, and trampled down everything to have its way. Frodo was willing to fall to his death just to wear that ring that looked like nothing for one more second. Sin's desire for you is one of total mastery. The alcohol has enslaved the homeless. Alcohol is their master. Not God is their master, not their family, not children, not a home or money. Alcohol or sin demands everything from them. And the deception is so powerful of sin that they willingly give it all away. And they know they're going to serve it. It never will totally leave us as Eve never left Adam. But the Lord tells us not to underestimate the power of these little sins. They look small. He warns you, sin is crouching and it's coming for you. It's desires for you. Our sins look small and harmless to ourselves. We think we can stop when we want. until they grow and become too powerful for us. And sin is not a big, giant gorilla or a rhinoceros charging at you. It's a well-hidden, cooled-up snake with a venomous bite that just happened. It looks small. It hasn't moved in weeks. They just sit, but one wrong little slip, it's waiting, and its bite is deadly. as that little grudge and anger and cain grew and took control, turning into premeditated murder of his own brother. But the Lord warned, you must master it. And we've been warned by the Lord that sin hides itself, that we're not to be fooled by that little bit of lust, or that little bit of anger, or whatever sin is barely visible. Do not give it an inch in your life because its desire is for you. It's never satisfied. It always wants more and more until it's the Master. So Lord, how we master it is to repent of your sins quickly because they will grow and they will spread and they change more than you can imagine. Paul says flee from sexual immorality. Never underestimate it. He doesn't say, Use your imagination. It's okay in little doses. It's okay to look at it on your phone a little bit as long as you don't go and do the real thing. Now he says flee from sexual immorality. Never underestimate it. And it's already inside you already and it's already waiting and crouching for its opportunity. spiritual brothers are warned to restore the fallen brother with caution, lest they also be tempted and fall." There in Galatians 6. The Lord told us that we should pray, lead us not into temptation, that we can only handle so much it will eventually, if we're not careful, trick us. And by its crouching and desiring, it doesn't take any off days. We must always be on guard 24-7. Zero tolerance. It's desires for you, but you must rule over it. Let's read verse 8-16, and we will see the solution to this problem. Verse 8-16 in Genesis 4, Cain told Abel his brother, now stop, I believe this is I don't think Cain told Abel all this stuff that the Lord told him necessarily. I believe this is translated as Cain was talking with his brother and said, let's go to the field. So Cain told his brother Abel, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? He said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you're cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden. I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, that no one finding him would slay him. And then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. So Cain did not heed the warnings of the Lord, his hate having grown and shown in him, saying, even after the fact, He says, am I my brother's keeper? He still had no repentance. Cain doesn't care anymore. The sin starting out as small and average resentment that I showed that we could perhaps even feel here if we knew that the Lord would reject our money in the offering plate. And that sin has crouched and deceived him so much that now Cain is totally captive by sin. He doesn't care. It started out small and average, but now Cain is no longer a servant of Jehovah, bringing Him offerings, but Cain is now a servant of sin, giving himself as an offering to sin, throwing it all away in obedience to sin. Now haven't we all been captured and mastered by our indwelling sin? And sin in our lives has had us do its bidding at the expense of serving God, and we've lost all. We're all born under the slavery of sin. Romans 7 verse 5 says, For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, those desires which were aroused by the law, were at work in the members of our body to bear the fruit of death. We were all like Cain, children of wrath, indeed exiles from the presence of the Lord, vagrants and wanderers on the earth. Please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2. or I'll read it. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 through 3. I'm painting a picture to where you cannot escape from this viewing yourself as Cain. You are as guilty as Cain. Ephesians 2 verse 1 through 3. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them We too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But all that hostility, guilt, wrath, and punishment due to sin, due to us, is destroyed and done away with by the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though through all the warnings the Lord has given us, and all the laws, we've all still sinned and neglected, and our offerings were not accepted, and we despise the Lord. The offering of the better able in the second Adam is more sufficient to restore us, namely, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We and our offerings are rejected by the Lord. We're unclean at first when we come to Him, apart from Jesus Christ. But through our better, more righteous brother, we can be accepted by the Lord. Our perfect brother by adoption. When the Lord said, this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He was more pleased than he was with Abel. Jesus came and He bore all those curses in our stead. As you see, Cain was cursed. Jesus was a vagrant and wanderer. He had no place to rest His head. His enemies continually sought to kill Him many times, and then He let them. They were successful. The Lord hid His face from Jesus as Cain said He would do. He says, My punishment is too great for Me. The Lord hid His face from Jesus while He was on the cross, so that He could look upon us as clean and righteous, and look upon us in love, because all these curses and wrath were poured on Jesus. God had regard for Abel's offering. and Abel's blood cried out to the ground unto the Lord. How much more does the blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus, cry out for the remission of our sins? In Hebrews 9, verse 23, talking about the blood and the offering of Jesus, being better than that of Abel, and being a better testimony than the blood of Abel as that cried out. Hebrews 9, 23 and 26. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor was it that he would offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year, with blood that is not his own, as Abel had done, Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus undoes all the curses upon humanity and lifts all of His people up beyond their original state in Adam. It removes the sin, it removes the dealt, it removes the possibility of sin. It gives us a better inheritance than Adam did, than Cain had, than Abel. And it's all secured by the perfect, accepted offering of Jesus Christ, that God was pleased with His offering, and He vindicated Him through the Spirit and raised Him from the dead to show that. So, in conclusion, we must indeed heed these warnings that sin is nearby, crouching stealthily inside you and around you, whispering the desires to be caught, its desires for you, and its desires to completely enslave you and grow more and more. But we must master it by fleeing from it, leaning completely on the Spirit of God, as being watchmen in the night, as Brother Rich was saying. leaning not on the power of the flesh, but on the power of the Spirit, and repent quickly from those little sins that we all do. We rationalize this and this, well, it's because this happened, etc. But the one and only way to defeat sin is indeed to be like Abel. who had an offering that the Lord would regard. No matter how sinful we've been, the answer is not my working hard, or tilling the ground harder, or bringing more work to the ground of the fruit, as Cain thought, as somehow pay got off for our wrongs. But to come to the Lord by faith with His Son, clinging to Him alone through faith, trusting only in this perfect sacrifice, and trusting nothing in ourselves, that by faith we cling to His blood is the only thing, or His blood makes us righteous. His blood forgives all of our sins. His blood gets us into the presence of the Lord. And by adoption we can cry out, Abba Father, no longer exiled as Cain was. So when we appear before the Lord at the last judgment, we can say with that old hymn writer, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for these words about this desiring of sin, Lord, that we rationalize and we underestimate the power of sin daily, Lord, and we thank you for this. story that You've written in Your Word. And we thank You for the beauty of it, of how the righteous brother had an offering that was accepted, and we too have a righteous brother whose offering was accepted of himself, namely Jesus Christ. Lord, and we thank You for sending Your only begotten Son, whom You were well pleased. Lord, and we thank You for Your Word and Your Spirit causing us to believe in Him. Lord, and I pray that we can be diligent against sin, and look to Christ, our Mediator, and look to the Spirit that He sends us, that we can walk holy and perfect before You. I ask this in Christ's name, Amen.