Cain - A battle

The idea of the Christian life being a battle has been around for a long time. Jesus said that he had not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). In the New Testament Paul  speaks of struggling against rulers, authorities, the powers of this dark world, spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:12).

Hymns such as ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and ‘Fight the Good Fight’ have been written. And sadly, some Christians have taken this idea of battle all too literally and have gone to war or perpetrated acts of violence under the banner of the cross of Christ.

However, I wonder if the biggest battle of all in the Christian life takes place within ourselves. Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first human being to be born of a woman, is a good example of this. We can read his history in Genesis 4. He was an arable farmer, in contrast to his brother Abel, who was a shepherd. Both brought sacrifices to the Lord, but Cain’s was rejected, because his actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous (1 John 3:12).

This, then, was Cain’s first battle within himself: how would he respond to his brother being given preference over him? This leads us to reflect, how do we respond when another person is chosen for that promotion that we really wanted, or that place in the team that we had trained for, or that position in our church that we had really set your heart on? How do we feel when God gives to someone else a spiritual gift that we have wanted for a long time?

We have a choice. We cannot be indifferent. We either swallow our pride and our disappointment and bless the person who has been preferred over us. Or we do what Cain did, and get angry - and we can always find many things to justify our anger, many reasons why the choice of that other person was wrong.

Here we see the amazing grace of our God. Despite Cain reacting badly, the Lord does not write him off - and he does not write us off either - but our God comes to him with an encouragement to set him back on the right path. Why are you angry? he asks. Why is your face downcast? 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 4:6-7).

Here is Cain’s second battle within himself - and one that each of us must regularly face. When we react badly to a situation, do something that is wrong or mess up, how do we react? Cain’s example shows that we can either master sin, or we can let sin have us.

We can never undo what we have done or unsay what we have said. But we can choose how we are going to behave now and in the future. If we have done wrong, we have given an entry point for sin into our lives - and it is a powerful force - it is crouching at our door. We may think, I’ve messed up, so why bother trying any more? We may well hear an accusing voice - which is not the voice of God - telling us that we are a hopeless Christian, that we have blown it, so it really doesn't matter if we mess up again. But it does! Every time we give in to wrongdoing, we give sin a bit more access to us. Cain refused to hear the Lord’s warning and ended up murdering his brother; and he was cast away from the Lord’s presence (Genesis 4:16).

Thankfully there is another way forward when we have failed: it is called repentance. This is not a word that people tend to use in everyday life, but it is an important one. It means humbling ourselves (never easy), accepting that we have done wrong or fallen short, saying sorry to God (and anybody else whom we may have hurt), and asking him to help us to do better in future.

For me it is so often a real struggle to repent; but when I finally do, I find it draws me closer to God. It puts him in the centre of my life, not my sin. Repentance enables us to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38); it brings forgiveness and times of refreshing from the Lord (Acts 3:19).

We will face this inner battle throughout our life. We will never be perfect in this life, though over the course of time constant resistance, with the help of the Holy Spirit, will strengthen us against sin and wrongdoing. We will often find sin crouching at our door. Will we, like Cain, give up the fight and so drift into a life of restless wandering (Genesis 4:14)? Or will we repent, do what is right, and so find acceptance and increasing intimacy in our relationship with God? The choice is ours; and Cain is a stark warning to us about the consequences of choosing badly.