Gen 4:6+7, Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." 
	We are considering the Word of God to Cain regarding what would happen if he allowed anger, frustration, and unforgiveness to fester within his heart and mind. It is apparent that Cain could have set aside his personal animosity and self-righteousness in terms of the sacrifice that he offered up to God. However, he chose to dwell upon the fact that God was not pleased with that which Cain brought before Him. In all reality, it was because of what Cain was after, in terms of his pride and personal standing in the sight of God and his brother, Abel, that God rejected his offering. God even disclosed this to Cain, talking with Him in a one-on-one basis, telling him that if he did well, his face would show it. God informed him that this was something that Cain could master, if he put his heart and mind to the task. Otherwise, sin would master him, which is exactly what happened. 
	This is something that we each must face in terms of our dealings with what wells up in our hearts as we struggle with those times of disappointment and frustration and anger and what we perceive as unfairness. Every one of us knows the course of the effects of this personal battle with self. It can haunt our every thought and motive on this earth. We can never state that we are completely done with it, because it is at the door of our hearts and minds whenever we have dealings with others. This is especially true in dealings with family members. We are so easily swayed by our anger and unforgiveness when we put ourselves in competition for what we perceive as the love of others.
	This is at the root of Cain’s issue; he thought that God loved his brother more than God loved him. In every instance within our earthly and spiritual family structures and the conflicts that seem to be utterly inherent in them, there is the same root issue that festers. We do not feel that we are as loved as our siblings or other family members. We measure ourselves against each other in terms of worthiness and appearances. Sadly, we begin to allow that anger and frustration and unforgiveness and even hatred to overwhelm our sensibilities. We begin to see everything in terms of the lies and the deception that sin infests into it. Nothing seems to be able to break asunder the hardened shell of self-protection that we allow to encapsulate our precious self-righteousness. 
	This is so malignantly manifested even to the point of the maliciousness of murder, as in the case of Cain and Abel. Instead of a working together in love, that vicious self-interest caused the one brother to hate and to slay the other brother. Sadly, in both our earthly families and in our spiritual family, we see this scenario played out over and over again. It may not lead to physical homicide, but it definitely leads to the complete death of the relationship that should be in place to glorify God. This is the antithesis of what He has created in terms of family and what family represents as typifying Christ and His adopted spiritual family of brothers and sisters. 
Christ is very specifically targeting this animosity in terms of the attitude that is inherent in the consideration of ourselves over our brothers and sisters, both familial and spiritual. Matt 5:21-24, "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. "If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. 
Notice that Christ puts this on the level of murder. It is not just dismissed as sibling rivalry, but set against the very act that Cain committed against Abel. We need to have the Holy Spirit open within us the severe gravity that God places on this arrogant and demeaning stance. It is absolutely evident that God will not even consider our offering if we hold something against our brother or sister. This is the exact act that Cain committed against the holiness of God, and look at the consequences that resulted. 
We cannot possibly think that we are better than Cain and that God will accept our prayers and supplications on the basis that Cain was Old Testament and we are New Testament. Christ, in this very passage of the New Testament, admonishes us with the same warning that we must not harbor ill toward any of our brethren, even to the point of calling one another a “fool”.
 In another, very familiar New Testament passage, Christ again relates the absolute incendiary result of our wanton self-elevation over a brother. Luke 15:29-32, "But he answered and said to his father, 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a kid, that I might be merry with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed the fattened calf for him.' "And he said to him, 'My child, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 'But we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.' " 
It is the parable of the Prodigal Son. The key aspect that we will highlight this morning is the attitude of the older brother who had done everything that the father required. He did not leave home. He did not demand to have his inheritance early. He did not disappoint the father and cause him grief and anguish. Yet, in spite of doing everything right, he harbors ill will toward his brother because he was both jealous and losing money as a result of the celebration. The direct cost of the fatted calf was part of his inheritance, and he was so upset that he refused to join into the merriment of his brother’s homecoming. Rather than rejoice along with his father in the safe return of his brother, he was upset and jealous of the attention and the expense that his father bestowed on the younger brother. With this attitude of selfishness and animosity and jealousy, the elder brother breaks his father’s heart.
This is a repeated and empathetic direct caution from God, Himself, against the animosity that sin infests into our lives. This is especially true when we allow it even the remotest access into the manner in which we revere ourselves over our brothers and sisters. Whenever we place ourselves over another, whenever we measure our value by the standard of what we perceive as the lack of worthiness in the eyes of this world, we are opening our selves to the awful horror of murder in our hearts!
As James relates, in his warning against even the slightest opening to sin in the Church of Christ’s believers, James 5:9, Do not complain, brethren, against one another, that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door. He calls us to the fact that God sees our heart, just as He saw the heart of Cain. We are not able to hide our disgust and our animosity and our anger and our unforgiveness and our slander and our gossip and our hatred and our jealousy. We cannot disguise our wanton disregard for God’s prescribed warning against allowing sin any access into our lives. Much as it may appear that we have nothing but love for our brothers and sisters, God sees through to the heart. He judges our motives and our intents and our attitudes of self-righteousness and self-indignation. We may be able to fool others and even to fool ourselves at the surface level, but God knows the every intent of the heart. 
	As the Lord again warns us in Eccl 7:9+10, Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools. Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this. It is foolish to think that we can control our anger. When we give into it, it becomes an overwhelming force that causes our very conscious awareness to dissolve in its acidic poison. We begin to stew and to imagine the worst in others. We find that every facet of our thinking is skewed with distrust and self-pity and self-loathing. We even begin to hate ourselves for the manner in which we are so enveloped in its grip, but we just can’t seem to think straight in terms of setting it all aside. At times, we even try to blame God for the predicament in which we find ourselves.
	As we are cautioned by James in James 1:13-15, Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
This is the full course of everything that we have seen in our consideration of the attitude of Cain and the manner in which he refused to obey the warning of God. He lusted after the approval that Abel had received and that led to the final murder of his own brother. His sin-filled and self-absorbed motivated act was something that he could not hide from himself or from God.
	As we are so fully instructed by the admonition recorded in Num 32:20-23, So Moses said to them, "If you will do this, if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for the war, and all of you armed men cross over the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven His enemies out from before Him, and the land is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be free of obligation toward the Lord and toward Israel, and this land shall be yours for a possession before the Lord. But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. The key point of this passage is the last sentence that Moses declares to the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben when they asked to remain on the other side of the Jordan River. Moses agreed as long as they would help to take the land for the rest of the Israelites. Then he informs them and us what will happen if we do not do as the Lord instructs us, But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. Our sin will always find us out. We cannot push it aside as non-consequential. We cannot claim that we are strong enough to not be touched by it if we disobey. There is no escape if we do not honor the Lord in our behavior and attitude and heart-felt desire to please Him in all that we say and do and think. 
	Look at what happened to King Saul when he opened his mind to destruction through envy and anger and jealousy over what was being said about David. 1 Sam 18:7-9, And the women sang as they played, and said, "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands." Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" And Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on. 
Rather than joining in the rejoicing of the victory over the enemies of the People of God, Saul rather began brooding about how he was not receiving the honor and the glory and the praise and the adoration that he felt he deserved. He lost the kingdom that he had received because he opened the door of his heart and mind to anger and unforgiveness and suspicion and jealousy. He even allowed himself to try to murder David, who had done nothing but honor him as God’s chosen King over the Israelites. But Saul was too lost in his sin, even to the point of consulting a sorceress, rather than to seek God’s forgiveness and truth.
In the story of Esther, we read of Haman, who became so foul in his hatred and jealousy that he tried to destroy all the Jews because there was one, Mordecai, who refused to bow down to him and to give him the honor that Haman craved. Est 3:5+6, When Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage to him, Haman was filled with rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were; therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. Haman’s hatred for Mordecai was so intense that he tried to wipe out all the Jews, men, women, and children, just to eliminate this one man. His plot back-fired and he and his family were the ones destroyed by his animosity and deception and hatred, as is always, always the case as we will find in our own lives. 
In these examples, and in our own hearts, we have seen the seeds of destruction that are sown when we allow ourselves to harbor and even fuel the fires of anger and unforgiveness and jealousy. As we conclude this morning, let us seek after God to do all that He requires to rid us of all unrighteousness. Rather than end with only the warning of God that we must not open the door to sin, let us be encouraged by the Apostle Paul as he instructs us in 2 Cor 5:6-10. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — for we walk by faith, not by sight —  we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. We are to be pleasing to God in the manner in which we live our lives on this earth. We are to honor him in the way in which we treat one another, especially our brothers and sisters in our both earthly families and in our heavenly family in Jesus Christ. 
We are not exempt from falling under the deception of sin if we harbor anger and animosity towards others. But, praise God, we are especially under the power of Jesus Christ, through His Holy Spirit, to be enabled to obey God and all His admonitions to us in His Word. It is not by our power or our determination or our will that we can resist those elements that would serve to distract us from our proper place of obedience to all that God puts forth as pleasing to Him. It is by the very life of Jesus Christ as He lives forth from us unto others, that we will please God in all our thoughts and words and deeds, and thus not even crack the door for sin to enter in. So be it!      
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Amen.

 	This morning’s benediction is 1 Chron 16:31. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; And let them say among the nations, "The Lord reigns." Amen.