6Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 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
I understand Cain's reaction at this point. It can be hard to hear we're not doing something right. My students sometimes they don't understand their grades when they put so much work into it. But you can put a lot of work into something and yet still not be doing it right!
It is not clear what Cain did to make the offering unacceptable, but I would guess there were directions that God had given him that were not followed. But God seems to be saying -do what is right next time.
I thought the bolded description of sin was interesting. The Lord seems to refer to sin as an active thing.
The Lord also still seems to be speaking to humanity directly here. But immediately after God says this to him, it seems he goes and kills his brother. And this one incident affects his lineage. His line is soiled. His great-great-great-grandson (or so) also kills a man (Genesis 4:23) and claims to be much worse than Cain (Gen 4:24). The sins of the father rest on the children and help shape their destiny. It is not Cain's lineage that brings forth Christ, but another son of Adam and Eve - Seth.
Today's society lives in the 'now' and often does not consider that the choices they make affect future generations for bad or for good.
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