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, and you must rule over it.”

Then Cain killed his brother Abel.

Sin is a noun in Hebrew that originally meant crouching beast. Source Strong’s H2403

What I find interesting in God’s instruction to Cain is that God does not tell Cain to get rid of the beast but rather to get it under control.

Crouching beast is an attitude of being prepared to pounce. Think of this beast as a large dog, the crouch can be a posture of ready to play. But if someone were to knock at the door it would be in a defensive posture, keeping you from getting to the door to see who is knocking.

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Note here just for the sake of argument that the dog doesn’t get fed if we let Jesus in.

The idea that sin is a crouching beast does not hold water. It is not a living thing that has the capacity to love whereas a dog does. Its desire for you only indicates our pleasure in playing with that crouching beast. It is our sin, we own it and it is up to us to decide if we love Jesus more than the sins we commit.

Jesus loves us, sin cannot. 

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, and you must rule over it.

John 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

Here we are in the 21st century, full of wisdom and experience and tell ourselves this is simple to understand.

We cannot put ourselves in Cain’s shoes. In Cain’s day the law was not given so there was no way to discover what sin meant. We have no way to know his living conditions or that he might not even know about doors.

We process information based on our own knowledge and experience.

Moses was given the words to write the first five books of the bible to be read by a people who may or may not have been alive at the time blood was smeared on the doorpost so that death would pass over them and allow them to live. The telling of the Passover would have begun with those who lived through those days and all that happened beforehand.

We don’t have that kind of generational witnessing of God’s power over sin.

Now think about our own personal knowledge and experience. How did we come to this point in our lives that we could hear God just as plainly as Cain did before he killed his brother?

There is a new generation out there that have not heard anything about sin or the door and what that means for them. 

Things will not change for them until they hear about the power of God over sin.

John 20:19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Revelation 3:8 I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

Jesus is open to us now.