Sin Crouching at the Door
A Devotional Series from Genesis
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
4/12 Reading Portions: Leviticus 16; Psalm 19; Proverbs 30; 1 Timothy 1
Genesis 4:7
“And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.”
TEMPTATION
Today, we look at the last part of verse seven. This is warning from the LORD can be understood by what our Lord Jesus gave us when He taught this model prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:9-13). In that prayer, He told us to pray in this way:
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Matthew 6:13
Now, recognizing that Jesus, as an itinerant preacher, preached this similar sermon in many of the towns and villages He entered. The Sermon on the Mount was the Lord Jesus’ stock sermon with slight variations, depending on the audience, as seen in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-49). But as far as the model prayer goes, the disciples may have thought that the Lord Jesus would give them something special, something different from what He had preached to the multitudes from town to town and from mountain to plain. So, when they asked Him (Luke 11:1), Jesus gave them the same model (Luke 11:2-4). And in that prayer, Jesus included the portion concerning temptation:
“And lead us not into temptation.” Luke 11:4
When Jesus preached this on the mount, it had not been long since He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11). Jesus’ temptations did not end there. It is written,
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15
Every temptation Jesus withstood in the wilderness, and every temptation He encountered along the way, stayed with His perfect mind and His perfect memory, yet He withstood it constantly, sinning not. He did what you and I cannot do, taking every withstood temptation all the way through the wrath of God He suffered on the cross, right up to His death on that tree.
You and I would be foolish to be led into temptation like Jesus was. Therefore, we pray as He told us to pray. When we pray this portion of the prayer, it is as if we are saying to our heavenly Father, “I am not perfect like Jesus. I cannot withstand the temptations He withstood. Father, allow me to only go as far as a sinner surrendered to the Holy Spirit is able, by Your grace.” Only in Christ is where the real power lies (1 Cor 10:13).
When we fail to recognize this, we become like Cain, exalting the work of our hands and the intellect of our minds over the grace of God; and sin therefore, crouches at the door, desiring our downfall. But, by God’s grace in Christ, we rule over such temptations by being strong in the Lord Jesus and the power of His might (Eph 6:10). Hallelujah! What a Savior!