May 6, 2023

Genesis 4: 4, 5, 8 The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look 

with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. . . . while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. (NIV)

Obedience breeds spiritual power. Disobedience breeds more disobedience.*

What went wrong here? Why did God favor Abel and his offering over Cain and his? Prior to this incident, we have no record of God having instituted the practice of offering sacrifices, so we don’t know if there was a procedural issue involved, but we find some hints within the passage that help us understand what happened and why. 

· Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil; Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. Was Abel more generous than his brother? 

· Cain was angry when God rejected his sacrifice. Could he already have been harboring a bad attitude? 

· In verse seven, God poses a question to Cain: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” Clearly, Cain had done something wrong. 

The message for us today is this: “It’s possible to feel what Cain felt without doing what Cain did.”* Cain was rejected and angry and he allowed sin to “crouch at his door.” We all have moments – maybe days – when negative emotions seem to be in charge. None of us has plotted and killed our brother in the midst of our snit, but we have all made bad decisions and allowed that crouching sin to come on in. The solution that God extended to Cain is the same that he offers us: master the sin (verse 7). 

From here, we look ahead to Jesus and we learn that we do not – cannot – rely on our own strength to master sin. The Holy Spirit is our power source (Acts 1: 8). It is his job to teach us and remind us (John 14: 26); to convict the world of guilt (John 16: 8); and to guide us into all truth (John 16: 12). We are not victims of sin – “But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8: 10) 

Master the sin, indeed!

To be born of God means that I have the supernatural power of God to stop sinning.*