Sin is crouching at your door

“The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'  …  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 master it.” (Genesis 3:2-3; 4:7)

            Among the Chinese martial arts movies I have enjoyed, there is a movie called “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in which actor Chow Yun-Fat appeared.  Can you imagine a tiger crouching down to eat its prey while staring at it in front of it?  Like that crouching tiger, now Satan is at the door of our hearts.

          In Genesis 4:7, God said to Adam's son Cain, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.”  That is, if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.  God said this to Cain because God accepted Cain's brother Abel and his offering (v. 4), but did not accept Cain and his offering (v. 5).  So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast (v. 5).  God, who knew it, told Cain, “sin is crouching at your door,” and said, “it desires to have you, but you must master it” (v. 7).  Sin was crouching at the door of Cain's heart and desiring to have Cain.  So God told Cain to master it.  However, Cain could not control his sin and killed his own brother Abel (v. 8).  In the end, Cain lost to his enemy Satan who went about like a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8) and looked for someone to devour by not able to master his sin and was ruled.  So he ended up committing the crime of murder by killing his own younger brother Abel.  In the end, Cain became the food of Satan, who was like a crouching lion.

When I think of this Cain, I think of his parents, Adam and Eve.  This is because Adam and Eve also became Satan’s food and sinned against God.  They disobeyed God's command and ate the fruit from of the knowledge of good and evil that was in the middle of the Garden of Eden (3:3), which God had told them not to eat.  The woman Eve ate first, and she gave it to Adam, and Adam also ate the fruit (v. 12).  Interestingly, in the process of eating the fruit, the serpent, the most cunning of the wild animals (v. 1), did not tempt Adam but his woman Eve, and the fact that she first said, “but God did say” (v. 3).  Why did the serpent tempt Adam's woman instead of tempting him?  Perhaps the reason is because Adam received God's word (command) directly (v. 11), but his wife Eve received God's command indirectly through her husband Adam.  That is, the woman did not receive a direct command from God not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:17).  Perhaps she received that God's command from her husband Adam.  Nevertheless, when the serpent said to her, “Did God really say to you that you must not eat from any tree of the garden?” (3:1), she said, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die’” (vv. 2-3). That is, when the serpent tempted her, she fought him with the word of God at first (v. 3).  But when the serpent again tempted her, “You will not surely die  …  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (vv. 4-5), she did not (could not) say “God did say” again but saw “the tree” (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) (v. 6).  She had already fallen into the serpent's temptation.  Like Jesus, when Satan tempted her, she should have continued to fight and overcome his temptation with the word of God [“it is written” (Mt. 4:4, 7, 10)], yet she saw the forbidden fruit.  As a result, she fell into the lust of the flesh (1 Jn. 2:16) [“good for food” (Gen. 3:6)] and the lust of the eyes (1 Jn. 2:16) [“pleasing to the eye” (Gen. 3:6)] and the boastful pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16) [“desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3:6)].  That is, she ate of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 6).  And she gave the fruit to her husband Adam who was with her, and he also ate it (v. 6).  Isn't it a bit ridiculous?  As a man who had received the direct command from God, shouldn't Adam have rejected his wife’s offer when she gave him the fruit and rebuked her with love?  At least, when the serpent tempted her, it seems that she tried to remember and obey God's command by saying "but God did say" at least once.  Isn't it so ridiculous that her husband Adam didn't do it at all and just received the fruit his wife gave him and ate it himself?  And, as the head of a family, Adam should have led his wife.  But doesn't it look pathetic to be led by her and eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  Another interesting thing is that the serpent spoke to the woman, but God spoke to Adam (v. 9).  Adam and his wife Eve, who sinned by breaking God's command and eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, heard God's voice in the garden, and were afraid because they were naked and hid themselves (v. 10).  When Adam and Eve hid from God among the trees of the garden (v. 8), God did not call Eve who had sinned first, but He called Adam (v. 9).  And when God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (v. 11), Adam said: “The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (v. 12).  Is this really a valid reason?  No, how could Adam make an excuse that “The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it”? (v. 12)  Eventually, Adam and his wife fell into the Satan’s temptation and sinned, so sin entered this world and death through sin (Rom. 5:12).

Now Satan is at our door.  Like the crouching tiger, Satan lies at the door of our hearts and tempts us.  Satan is trying to make us to fall into the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life, and to disobey the word of God and commit sin.  We must fight and overcome this temptation of Satan with the word of God.  The Lord says this in Revelation 3:20 – “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”  Now the Lord is standing at the door of our hearts and knocking.  Let us all hear the voice of the Lord and open our hearts.  Therefore, in fellowship with the Lord, I hope and pray that we will be victorious in the fight against sin and the devil and Satan with the power of the Lord's word.

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like

a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  But resist him, firm in your faith,

knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished

by your brethren who are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).