Genesis 3:14-24

[0:00] Okay, Genesis chapter 3, we've come as far as verse 14. We said how last week we broke Genesis chapter 3 into two parts, verse 1 through 13, the failure and the fall, and then this week will be the blessing and the curse, and we saw how there's two primary voices.

[0:23] Last week was the serpent's voice. There's some other voices in there, Adam and Eve. But primarily had the serpent's voice, and this week we're going to have primarily the word of God, the voice of the word of God.

[0:35] So we will read, and then we will pray. But in verse 14 of Genesis chapter 3, let's actually back up to verse 11.

[0:49] This is the Lord speaking, and he said, Who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou should not eat? And the man said, The woman whom you gave us to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

[1:03] And the Lord said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.

[1:21] Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.

[1:32] It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

[1:49] And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake.

[2:01] In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles, shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.

[2:12] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground. For out of it thou hast taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

[2:27] And unto Adam also, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.

[2:40] And now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

[2:52] So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

[3:04] Father, thank you for this account, Lord, of this tragic event in history, Lord. One of the very first events of our history. And yet, Lord, as we're going to see today, Lord, it didn't stay a tragedy.

[3:18] That out of tragedy came triumph, Lord. That because of the curse, we have the cross. And because of the cross, Lord, we have redemption. And so, Lord, I pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to understand your word, to hear your voice, Lord.

[3:34] The voice that walked in the cool of the garden, that called to Adam and Eve in their sin, Lord. You're calling to us just the same. There's nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Not height, nor depth, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other created thing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

[3:54] Lord, I pray that you would let each one of us just sense the presence of that love. And in Jesus' name, amen. I'm going to start out with a quote as we find Adam and Eve here stuck, right?

[4:12] Last week, they went about to cover their own failures and their own sin. And God stepped in. And kind of with the word, with those questions he asked them, you know, he said he wanted to know, where are you, who are you, and what are you?

[4:32] And the word of God penetrated and pointed out those things. And so now they've responded to him. And at first, it's like, oh, as usual, when we're confronted with our sin or something that rubs against self, which is now wide awake, we make an excuse.

[4:49] But if you look at the end of verse 12 and verse 13, they confessed. They said, and I did eat. And I did eat. So despite their pushing off their failure onto someone else at first, they have owned up to it.

[5:08] And if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us. But they now find themselves in this situation. This is by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

[5:19] He said, The yes, Lord of my world, but it's isolated.

[5:55] I'm cut off because sin isolates. And that's where Adam and Eve now find themselves. Their connection with the Lord, the source of life they've been removed from. And so today, if you want to break down kind of the scriptures, I'm looking at it.

[6:09] Verses 14 through 19 is consequence. Verse 20 to 21 is the cure. Verse 22 to 24 is the connection all in relation to this curse.

[6:21] What we're going to see today is that God's correction. Oh, I'm sorry. It's God's protection. If you didn't finish writing that down, I'll leave it for a minute. God's correction is God's protection.

[6:33] Proverbs chapter 3 verse 11 and 12 says, So Adam and Eve, they're going to receive correction.

[6:58] The word of God is going to speak in response to the word of the enemy. Satan's voice, the enemy's voice is silenced by the word of God. And the word of God speaks long after the voice of the enemy is silenced.

[7:12] So, where were we? Sorry, verse 14. So the Lord's responding and he speaks now. And he says, The Lord God said unto the serpent, in Genesis 3, 14, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field.

[7:33] Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Curse, the word curse means abhorrence, reviled, inspiring disgust.

[7:45] Something we pull away from. Something that we look at as just absolutely incomprehensible to us. And so God curses the serpent. He's going to curse the ground, too.

[7:57] Who he doesn't curse is Adam and Eve. He doesn't curse them. They are under the curse. They are within a system that's cursed. But he never curses them. We can be cursed as a people.

[8:11] In Jeremiah 17, 5, Thus says the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusts in man. And makes flesh his arm, or his strength.

[8:23] And whose heart departs from the Lord. So yes, there's a curse we can fall under. It's not the curse that God puts on the serpent or on creation. It's a curse that goes deeper than that.

[8:34] It's a curse of our heart that, just like Adam and Eve, they trusted something other than the Lord. But there's a blessing there for those who trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

[8:49] Two verses later there in Jeremiah. So the serpent gets cursed. And it's interesting what the Lord says here to Satan. You know, what did he desire? What did we see that Lucifer, son of the morning, wanted above all else?

[9:02] He said, I will exalt myself above all creation. I will be greater than all creation. And God gave him what he wanted, didn't he? Look there in verse 14. The Lord said to the serpent, because you've done this, you're cursed above all cattle and every beast of the field.

[9:20] He got what he wanted. He's now higher in the curse than any other of God's creation. Now, God's speaking to the serpent, right? He's speaking to Satan through the serpent in a sense.

[9:32] But yes, the serpent, the actual created creature, also got cursed. Well, why? Well, it's so that every time we see one of those things, we see a snake, we can remember, hey, this was the effect of the curse.

[9:45] And so what did he end up doing to him that was part of his curse? He said, of every beast of the field, you're cursed above them. And upon your belly, you shall go. And dust, you shall eat all the days of your life.

[9:56] So it seems like at one time, right, he had legs. He could walk. He wasn't on his belly. And at this point now, this is his curse. And so what is the first thing sin does? It cuts out his ability to walk.

[10:08] Sin takes away our walk. Totally removed the serpent's ability to walk. And he has to crawl on his belly. Later on in verse 19, God's going to tell Adam, he said, you're going to return to the dust, for from the dust you are, and under the dust you shall return.

[10:22] And here's the serpent, you know, Satan, who hated man, who wanted to be elevated above creation. What's his, what's his, what's the word? Not consequence.

[10:34] Sentence. His sentence is to choke on dust, to crawl in dust, to eat dust. He's choking on man, essentially, for the rest of his life. He's going to choke on this.

[10:45] And isn't he, though? Because Jesus, God himself, is going to take on flesh. He's going to become a man. And boy, is he going to choke Satan. He's going to choke him big time. So here's the first curse that God puts on the serpent.

[11:00] God's going to curse the serpent. So there's a consequence to the serpent. There's a consequence to Eve and also to Adam. And what we're going to find out is that God's word sets boundaries to sin.

[11:10] And it offers protection. And so what we look at as maybe a curse, there's a blessing in it. The curse is that Adam and Eve sinned. They've come under a curse. God didn't curse them. They chose the curse.

[11:21] God's word comes in now and speaks to that curse. And he puts boundaries around it. He gives protection to it. So they've just fallen, right? Imagine if the Lord doesn't come and say anything to them. He just leaves them.

[11:32] Well, they're left in sin. They're just totally, like, rudderless and directionless and reacting now out of their natural instincts. Well, the word of God comes and sets a boundary on this.

[11:43] And within the word that God's going to speak to them, there's protection. And if we stay in that protection, well, we're going to see there's a big blessing in that, too. But for the serpent, he don't get none of that.

[11:54] Later in Isaiah, it's pointed out that the lion will lay down with the lamb. The lion will eat grass like the ox. And the serpent will dwell in the dust.

[12:05] It doesn't change for him. He doesn't get another chance. It's the end for him. So there's no going back. And we see there a picture for sin. There's no going back. Adam and Eve had entered into something they can't get back from.

[12:16] I was thinking that we were watching. We've had this weird kick of watching some old westerns, which I think we're done with it. I think I got my fill of a couple of them. I never really liked them.

[12:27] But there is one, and it was just like, you know, I don't watch a lot of movies, and I really identify a lot with what's happening. And sometimes I just don't like the effect it has on me. But the one guy, I was thinking, man, he ended up having to shoot his own kid.

[12:40] And it was like a grown kid. But I was thinking, you don't go back from that. You don't go, oh, oops. You know, I mean, if I'm a jerk to someone once in a while, you can kind of go back from that.

[12:53] You can be like, hey, I'm sorry. You know, I'm really sorry about that. But death, man, it's so final. And it's like sin. And once it's committed, you can't undo it. It's like it's there.

[13:05] Ecclesiastes gives us that picture a little bit. In Ecclesiastes 8, verse 8, says, There's no man that has power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit. Neither has he power in the day of death.

[13:18] And there's no discharge in that war. In other words, nobody's getting out of it. Nobody's overcome death. You don't get a pass. It's final. There's no going back.

[13:29] This is where sin leads to. You can't undo this. And it's making me think of Esau. When he comes to Isaac, he's like, bless me too, after Jacob's stolen his blessing.

[13:41] And he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry and said unto his father, bless me, even me also, oh, my father. And look at what Isaac recognizes. Isaac recognizes he has spoken the word of God.

[13:52] And the word of God doesn't go back. He said, your brother came with subtlety and has taken away your blessing. That's what sin does. You can't undo sin.

[14:04] And that's the picture we have here with the serpent. That there's judgment pronounced on him and it's never going to be undone. It's final. But as we continue on, he then speaks and says in verse 15, And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

[14:24] And it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. And the word there for bruise means literally to crush. So he will crush the heel.

[14:35] And we all know the wording here and how it's interestingly worded. And this is the first instance of the gospel. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

[14:46] It, a specific singular, shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. So we know that's talking about Jesus on the cross, right? When the serpent lashed out and thought, I've crushed him.

[15:00] I don't know if we'll get to really understand what that moment meant to Satan when we're in eternity. But man, I think he thought, I did it. I dragged him into death. I did it.

[15:11] I have exalted myself. I think of that when people who think that death is an escape. And that moment when the veil of this flesh is torn. And all of a sudden they realize, uh-oh.

[15:25] I haven't escaped. I'm trapped. Because they've not chosen Christ. I think of when Jesus on the cross, when he said, it's finished. I imagine all hell was like, yeah, uh-oh.

[15:37] For a moment, they might have thought, we did it. And Jesus crushed the head of the serpent. Completely crushed. I was reading about the serpent.

[15:47] And I had read somewhere that if you bruise the head of a serpent, it'll kill him because the venom's in the head. And so the poison will get in him. Well, I think I couldn't find any validity to that, unfortunately. But you can cut the head off a serpent and they live a long time.

[16:00] Or seem to live a long time. And I found an account of a man who died some couple hours later when he was in the Far East cooking a serpent. And he'd cut the head off.

[16:11] And they went to throw the head away and it bit him. And he died. So Satan's head's crushed. He's dead. But there's still some twitching and flailing about, right? And that's the world we live in today.

[16:22] Satan's head is crushed. And all the venom's been taken out of that bite. But he still flails around a lot. He still can cause some injury. And he still can make a mess.

[16:34] But Jesus, in this first picture we have here of the gospel, we see where Jesus will crush his head. And we will come back to that a little later. I want to work through some of this and tie it in with the cure.

[16:47] But what does he say? He said that he would put between the woman and the serpent and her seed enmity. I'll put enmity. That means hatred.

[16:58] God put it there. This is a God-given hatred. What is the world actively today trying to undo? They're trying to take away that natural inhibition, that natural hatred for the things of the enemy towards sin.

[17:11] And they're saying, hey, accept it. Oh, no, no. There doesn't need to be hatred. We can all get along. It's all good. It's like, well, wait a minute. That's the seed of the serpent. Anything that tells me that God's creation, that I can have mastery over it, then I can lord over that creation and change a man into a woman or a woman into a man or whatever.

[17:33] Well, that's the seed of the serpent. That's his seed. The seed of the woman, which God is going to eventually with the second Adam. He's going to give new life to that seed.

[17:45] Right? He says, no, no. We live in righteousness. And the world says, no, no. There doesn't need to be enmity. We can all get along. We can do this. But here, this is a God-given enmity.

[17:57] So when you find yourself reacting to something that's in a way that's like, ooh, I'm reacting to that like it's the seed of the serpent. Right? Maybe you think, oh, but nobody else reacts that way.

[18:12] Everybody else accepts that. I mean, I can barely watch an old Western, but this guy over here, he can watch the latest and greatest whatever movie. That makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I just need to get over it.

[18:24] Maybe I just need to figure out not to have this feeling of enmity towards this thing. Mm-mm. That is God-given. God put that there as a protection, as a safety barrier between us and the serpent.

[18:38] And then he says to the woman now, beginning to speak to the woman, in verse 16, and it's interesting, we're not going to hear the serpent's voice again. He's done. And then God steps in, and the voice of God now overrules the effect of the enemy's voice.

[18:54] And he said to the woman, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth children, and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.

[19:06] Okay, this is how I don't think he said it. I don't think he said, I'm going to greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you're going to bring forth children, and your desire is going to be for your husband, but he's going to rule over you, baby.

[19:19] You know, no, he didn't say that. The voice of the Lord is a blessing and not a curse. To man, when God speaks to man, he speaks in a voice of blessing.

[19:29] God's correction is God's protection. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Not who he's mad at. He's not mad at Adam and Eve. This is God's plan.

[19:42] He said unto the woman, I think his heart was breaking, but this is for her protection. He's like, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you will bring forth children, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

[19:56] How is it her protection? Well, there's two words there for sorrow. The first word's actually like physical pain, and we're going to be told how Adam has the same condition when he's tolling the ground. In pain, he's going to be having to now work.

[20:08] And the second word for sorrow is more of like an anguish, like an inner anguish of the heart. And if you look at women, more nurturing, this is how God created them. Now remember, Adam and Eve's created purpose doesn't change because of the fall.

[20:22] God has to put boundaries on it. There's now sin involved with it, but it didn't change. It wasn't like, well, God created Adam, and then he brought Eve to be the helpmeet, and now that they've sinned, none of that stuff applies anymore.

[20:34] She's not his helpmeet. No, she is. But in this instance, God is putting protection here around the woman. But her heart is more towards her children, right? And more towards her home.

[20:46] And it says her desire shall be for her husband, and he shall rule over her. That's for her protection. How so? Well, in 1 Timothy 2, verse 11 through 15, Paul talks to Timothy about women in the church.

[21:01] And these are kind of uncomfortable today. And the reason I'm pointing a little of this out, we're going to go a little bit into this, not too much. We're not in a society right now that is like, kind of like the Islamic society, right?

[21:13] Where the women are held down, and they have no value and no worth. What's our world today? You know, Venus, the woman, shall rise from the ashes. Men are worthless and fools, and what do we need them for anyway, right?

[21:27] We'll find a way to somehow keep humanity going without needing them. So, why is that, and why is that a problem? Because that's outside God's created order.

[21:38] Just like the serpent today is still trying to convince us that we don't need to have enmity in those areas God has given us a natural aversion to with sin because of the curse. Well, it's the same thing.

[21:49] He's saying you don't need to fall under the word of God spoken over this sin. And so, Paul says, Hey, let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

[22:02] For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

[22:17] This is the word of God, and it's Paul. Paul's not saying, Women are crazy. Let the men... No, that's not at all what he's saying. What he's saying is, Women, you have a tendency, just like we looked at last week, there's a tendency to hear a voice as well as the Lord's voice, and to combine them two and be deceived.

[22:38] Why? Because you're not as smart? Not at all. But because you have a heart of empathy. Because you have an emotional side to you that helps direct your actions. And that works really well in the sphere God created you for.

[22:52] I don't always react very well in situations in the home that probably could use more emotion. I've been told so a few different times. Usually it falls in line with something like, Dad, I didn't need a verse right now.

[23:06] I just need you to listen. Oh, sorry. You want to fix it? Well, no. That could also lend itself to deception. And so God gives protection.

[23:18] And he also says, For Adam was first formed. That's not first as in you're better. But that's just God has an order and he has a specific purpose. And when that works together, it's great. Oh, well, women aren't supposed to talk in church.

[23:29] Well, they're not supposed to be a voice of authority. Because Adam, the fool, has a tendency to listen to that voice instead of God's voice. Adam and Eve were sinless, but they were still human.

[23:42] They had still the character and flesh of a human. They were not born again. They did not have the indwelling presence of God like we do. So they were in sinless perfection, but we see character qualities that through sin turned into character flaws.

[23:58] Adam seems to be that he'll tend to listen to his wife's voice instead of God's voice. And I think that's just normal for guys to abdicate, to push off decisions that God would give them because they don't want to upset things and they don't really want to have to take the responsibility.

[24:15] Now, Paul will also tell women in Corinthians, he'll say, because in Corinth, they were having this discussion about whether they should have head coverings or not, the cultural thing.

[24:28] And so he says to the women, when praying or prophesying, have your head covered because it's a cultural thing. So obviously they're talking in church because he's saying praying or prophesying. This is specifically a voice of authority.

[24:40] But here he says, and I like this one a lot, 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 34, he says, let your women keep silence in the churches for it's not permitted unto them to speak with authority over the men, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also says the law.

[24:56] Ha! Obey! Women, obey! And if they learn anything, it's just, see, and that means it's not certain they're going to learn anything. No, it's not. We have conversation in the car on the way home, I think.

[25:10] Well, learn you. And if they will learn, or as they will learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it's a shame for women to speak in the church. Again, in the sense of Eve's place wasn't to speak with authority regarding God's word that was given through Adam.

[25:28] She did, and look what happened, and Adam listened to that. But that part there where it says, let her ask her husband at home, that's the part that we failed miserably in our culture today.

[25:38] That men like Adam were nowhere to be found when Eve needed him. When the voice of the serpent was speaking to her and dragging her into sin, twisting God's word, where was Adam?

[25:49] Hopefully he wasn't right there. It's possible he was standing there. Even worse. And there are some men who stand next to their wives, live with her, and watch her being dragged by the enemy into something she shouldn't be dragged into.

[26:01] Because they don't have their own relationship with the word, with the Lord. They don't know their Bibles. At home, can their wife go to them and say, hey, honey, can you help me out with this?

[26:12] What do you think this means? Are you leading well at home? If they're not, then what do you expect? The women, because what is their God-given desire to do?

[26:23] To be a helper. To help. To be a helpmeet. Right? So when they see a void because man's a loser and he's not doing what he's called to do, they're going to be like, I got this. I'll step in.

[26:34] I'll fill this. That's what they're created to do. God made them to do that with Adam. Thank the Lord my wife does that with me in those areas that I have no idea they need filling and she fills that void.

[26:46] I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for that. Like we said last week, how many single pastors do you know? Not many. Not too many that have really made a huge impact for the Lord.

[26:58] There's some. Because this is how God has made this. And so, man, man, you need to be a voice at home for the Lord so that your wife's not hearing other voices.

[27:11] Colossians 3, 17 to 19, And whatsoever you do, in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as is fit in the Lord.

[27:25] Period. We don't get to argue with that. For protection. Right? Because God's order will always work. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.

[27:40] Love your wives as Jesus did. He entered into their world and he died there. And be not bitter against them. Well, where does that bitterness come from? Because they're not like us.

[27:52] And sometimes it will be frustrating because we'll hear a voice and we think, well, that's not the voice I want you to speak right now. And a lot of times it might be because the Lord's going, I want you to come listen to my voice, dude.

[28:05] Stop listening to that voice. Come listen to me. Not that we don't listen to our wives, but because God wants us to lead as men. Quote by Alan Redpath.

[28:15] I like this one. A man who can only rule by stamping his foot had better remain single. But a man who knows how to govern his house by the love of the Lord through sacrificial submission to the Lord is the man who's going to make a perfect husband.

[28:31] The woman who cannot submit to an authority like that had better remain single. You know, if we flip it on its head, I think it makes more sense a little bit. Think of what the enemy did with Eve in the garden.

[28:43] God said, you can eat from every tree, just don't eat that one. And he flipped it and said, oh, did God say you can't have everything? He's such a restrictor, isn't he? Well, the enemy comes today in the voice of the women's liberation movement and all that good jazz and says, has God really said your husband's in charge?

[29:05] Has he really said that you're inferior? No, he never did. But if you flip it around and go, how many of you would want a deadbeat dad who doesn't know the Lord, who's weak and a loser?

[29:17] Anybody want that? No. Who wants a dad who loves the Lord, who serves the Lord, who serves his family and leads his family, who loves his wife and sacrifices for her?

[29:28] Who wants a dad like that? Sign me up! Right? Who wants a husband, ladies? Who's just a bum, who doesn't do anything, who has no understanding of the word, who won't follow the Lord, and is just all about his own thing?

[29:42] Yeah, but then I can be in charge in the home. You really want to live in a home like that? Right? And for guys, I can testify to this, guys, no lady's going to want a guy like that.

[29:55] So don't be that. Right? Know the word and know the Lord. And ladies, no guy wants a girl who's going to come into his world and be like, I'm the boss, shut up and do what I tell you.

[30:08] Right? Because that's not what God created to fit together and to be the picture that he's given here. That is part of the curse, something that we revile against and go, that just doesn't seem right.

[30:19] It just doesn't fit. It's just not... But then we see this picture of the Lord in marriage that is so perfect. Anyway, so, why pain?

[30:31] Why this pain? Pain and sorrow remind us that sin hurts. That's like the most basic thing about this message, I think. Pain and sorrow remind us sin hurts.

[30:42] The woman's under sin, there is pain, there is sorrow. It's going to be there no matter what. And God comes in and says to Eve, I'm going to multiply it, though. Why would he do that? So that when Eve gives birth, when she brings forth new life out of this pain and sorrow, it'll be a reminder that God works through these things, that despite the sin and the fall, there's still a blessing.

[31:09] And in, I can't find it right now, I thought I had it, in John chapter 3, I think it is, where Jesus says that the woman for joy when the man-child is born and the baby's born forgets the sorrow.

[31:25] Right? That's the picture we're given in this. That yes, there's pain and there's sorrow, but on the other side of that is joy. And it's the same thing we have in Jesus now through this, through the fall.

[31:37] And so God puts these boundaries around this and this protection around it for Eve. And he says to Adam in verse 17, because you've hearkened under the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree, you didn't listen to my voice, Adam, you chose another voice, of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it, cursed to the ground for your sake, and in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life.

[32:00] Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you. Thou shalt eat the herb of the field and the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread till thou return to the ground. For out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and unto dust you shall return.

[32:15] So Adam's given this. He has to work a cursed ground. Sin brought in a curse and God cursed the ground because of Adam. Why Adam? Well, we looked at that last week, right? Because as the firstborn of humanity and being so closely tied to creation, having dominion over it as goes the king, so goes his dominion.

[32:35] And so through Adam's fall comes sin. Look what he's given here. A ground that once freely gave forth fruit, a place that was fruitfulness and blessing, he now has to strive for, he's got to work in, it brings forth thorns and thistles.

[32:52] So instead of a garden, he's now in a field. Instead of a blessing, he has to labor. Instead of joy, it's pain. But look what God is doing.

[33:05] God institutes preservation that man might meet his reservation. All that God is doing now in creation is not about making sure things just kind of work and that man can be alive or somewhat happy or whatever.

[33:20] It's for a purpose that God has a place and a plan for them. Another quote by Bonhoeffer. Adam's life is preserved until it finds its end in death. Our life is preserved only until it finds its end in Christ.

[33:34] All orders of our fallen world are God's orders of preservation that uphold and preserve us for Christ. They are not orders of creation. That wasn't God's order for creation.

[33:45] Creation fell. This is now a new order. It's an order of preservation. They have no value in themselves. What value is it for a man to live 80 some years and die? What value is it during those 80 years of life?

[33:58] Oh, well, I built some buildings. I planted some gardens. I had some kids. What value is that in this life? They have no value in themselves. Instead, they find their end in meaning only through Christ.

[34:10] God's new action with humankind is to uphold and preserve humankind in its fallen world for death, for the resurrection, for the new creation, for Christ.

[34:21] So while the sin brought a curse and the curse brought death, death brings resurrection. There is no redemption without the curse. You and I have to be under the curse if we want to be in Christ.

[34:33] You have to be. You can't get outside of that. If it wasn't for the fall, there'd be no Jesus. There'd be no Holy Spirit. There'd be no waking up in the morning and have the presence of God meet with us.

[34:45] I don't know what I'd do without that. I don't want to be sinless and perfect. I'd rather struggle in who I am right now knowing I have redemption, knowing that God will forgive my sins, He'll work with me, and then there'll be a day where I'll be redeemed and I'll have sin and sorrow no more and I'll have Christ.

[35:00] I can't wait for that. Jude tells us in Jude verse 1, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus and called.

[35:14] Preserved. Peter, 1 Peter 1 verse 4, We are preserved, what? To an inheritance uncorruptible and undefiled that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

[35:32] So God, He preserves us because He has a reservation for us, a place reserved for us. Adam's curse or consequences preserve his life.

[35:42] God says, this is how you're going to stay alive, dude. You're going to have to work. You're going to have to work the ground, but it's going to still produce fruitfulness. You'll still have life out of that.

[35:56] And so pain reminds us, simply, sin hurts. Every time Adam's out there working, this is, this is horrible. Yeah, it is.

[36:07] It is horrible. And so we go to the Lord and we recognize that God has a plan beyond just this sinful fallen state. And He says to Adam there, verse 19, in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread till you return unto the ground, for out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and dust you shall return.

[36:29] Death is the gateway. It's not a punishment. Death is a consequence of sin. God didn't punish Adam and Eve because they sinned. He said, if you eat of the fruit and if you sin, you'll die. Then God uses death as a gateway.

[36:42] If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ and God.

[36:54] It doesn't happen if you're not dead. We must die with Christ that we might live with Him. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. And so where Adam is given the end in death, death was never meant to be His final end.

[37:11] Death was just meant to be the gateway into resurrected life. So what did we see so far? We saw that sin makes us crawl where we once walked. Sin adds sorrow to a blessing, turned pleasure into pain, replaced blessing with effort.

[37:26] And for Adam, sin always works against fruitfulness, where once he just had to reach out and take the fruit of the trees in the garden. Now he's got to work for it.

[37:38] Now it's replaced fruitfulness with self-effort. And lastly, it adds thorns to service. Because remember that word there for till literally meant serve.

[37:49] Adam was to serve the ground. He was to till the ground. Now he has to do it in the presence of thorns and thistles to serve with thorns. And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.

[38:06] So Eve was not named by God. Eve was named by Adam. We say Adam and Eve was actually Adam and woman. Adam and the woman. God created them male and female. He created them. Eve was named by Adam.

[38:17] That is why women take men's names because the name comes from the man. Her identity came from the man. We don't like to hear that today. Nobody's going to be taking this teaching and you know it's not going viral.

[38:34] But God designed it that way. Her desire shall be for her husband and that's how it is that God designed men and women that when they are one that the identity then becomes one.

[38:45] It's not like this is who you are and this is who I am. You see some relationships like that that are a little weird. Like oh yeah we have separate bank accounts and we even do separate vacations and separate activities and separate like that's really kind of weird.

[38:58] You know didn't your identity come together at all? Didn't you identify with each other on a level beneath that? A lack of understanding of marriage. And so here God names her Eve.

[39:09] Eve meaning the mother of all living. Why did he name her that? Right after death comes in God says to him and unto dust you shall return and he names Eve the mother of all living.

[39:21] I think it was in faith. Right? I think he's like this isn't the end. This isn't the end. There's a promise. God gave them a promise back there that they were going to have a seed and they're going to think it's Cain unfortunately to begin with.

[39:33] That their child a seed of descendant of theirs is going to bring this redemption this reconciliation. And unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothe them.

[39:47] And so here we see now moving into that covering and cure. We had the curse and the consequence now we have the cure and God does it by covering. In John 3 verse 14 we read and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believes in him should not perish will not end in death but will end in life but have eternal life.

[40:10] So just as the serpent that picture of the curse was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness that whoever looked at it if they were bitten by the serpents who were in the camp then they would be healed.

[40:21] In the same way Christ he became a curse for us. Galatians 3 verse 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.

[40:35] He became sin for us in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 for he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

[40:49] And so God has instituted this first sacrifice. We know from Hebrews that all things by the law are purged with blood and without shedding of blood there's no remission. It is through the blood being shed that the sin is covered.

[41:03] Why? So there's covering the cure. God covers. He clothed them. Right? He sacrifices the animal and then he clothes them. Why? Why do we need sin to be covered? So when my sin is washed away it is.

[41:14] It's also covered because sin is so shameful and it causes separation. Look what it did with Adam and Eve right in the beginning. They knew they were naked. They were exposed and they pulled back from each other.

[41:26] God in his grace covers their sin in a way that they can dwell together while in a sinful state. If God wasn't covering our sin and our sin was exposed to one another it would be even in Christ too great for us to handle.

[41:37] The thoughts and deeds you have done I don't need to know them and you don't need to know mine but Jesus is constantly covering our sin and yes there's also the cure that through the blood it is cleansed and washed away.

[41:50] And lastly for this section here we are to put on Christ. He has given us a covering. In Romans 13 14 put you on the Lord Jesus Christ make no provision for the flesh to fulfill his desires thereof.

[42:02] And that's what that covering does. It protects us protects each other from each other's sin and it protects me from sin. That if we put on Christ it keeps us from making those provisions for the flesh.

[42:15] And so the Lord God said behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.

[42:27] Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till their ground from whence he was taken. And so now God has to step in and he has to bring correction so that he might maintain a connection.

[42:41] God wants to stay connected to fallen man and woman but he has to kind of make a correction because of sin. And what have we seen that sin does? Sin stops our walk it robs our joy and prevents our fruitfulness.

[42:55] With the serpent it stopped his walk cut his legs out from under him. With the woman the joy she had in childbirth is now sorrow to begin with and it prevents our fruitfulness.

[43:08] Where we once walked oops we now crawl. where there was once joy is pain and sorrow it drives us out of God's purpose. Adam and Eve are driven out of the garden and it adds thorns to our service.

[43:23] But we have the word the word comes in on top of sin after sin and says hey that pain it turns it into a blessing. Eve through your pain and through your sorrow there's going to be joy on the other side.

[43:36] You're going to give life. You know it's so put down today and it's so sad the role that God has given his the woman that he created that he crafted from that rib from Adam.

[43:49] If Eve said I'm not staying home I'm not bearing children I'm going to work I'm making a name for myself you can find another way to have kids how many of us would be here?

[44:02] Nope. She embraced that role right? It was absolutely paramount for her to embrace the role God gave her. If she didn't there'd be no humanity. We don't take it so serious unfortunately.

[44:13] And you hear people say oh you're only a stay at home mom. Well at the end of that you need to tag on of your kids. You're not just a random stay at home mom. You're a stay at home mom of your kids.

[44:25] You're not like a stay at home mom of your neighbor's kids or someone else's kids. They're yours. They're your kids. Right? I'm the father of my kids. Right? I'm not going to give that to someone else to do.

[44:35] The things that God has given me to do. Now there's opportunity of course that God will give for us to do other things to work or have careers or whatever as we follow him. That's up to him. But if it's in if it's in rebellion to his created order that's never going to turn out well.

[44:51] And so here the word turned sorrow to joy and it turned death to life. Adam your end is in death but hey on the other side of that buddy is resurrection. And so Adam received more through the fall than he had prior because of Christ.

[45:09] We gain more in Christ than we ever lose in Adam. Verse 22 where it says the man has become like one of us and knows good and evil like one of us. It could be better translated behold what has become by sin of the man who was as one of us formed at first in our image to no good and evil.

[45:28] How sad his condition now. It's kind of God recognizing what has happened. Look at this. How sad. And so he has to send them out of the garden away from the tree of life because he says there if they eat of it they'll live forever.

[45:44] Do you want to live forever? I want to live forever but not in this state. I couldn't imagine living forever in sin. Even the people in the world that you know they're trying to make the best of their life they're trying to do the best they can and if you said do you want to die?

[45:56] They say well I don't want to die. But if you said to them do you want to live forever as you are? They may say oh yeah yeah yeah but would they? How long would that last?

[46:07] How much misery? We're going to eventually see that before the flood that man in longevity only leads to misery. But that tree of life will come back and we won't look at it but Revelation 22 1 through 4 we see there that there's no more curse it tells us but the throne of God and there is a tree of life where we will also again be partakers of it.

[46:32] And so the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till again same word to serve the ground from whence he was taken but now he's serving in the presence of thorns and thistles and it hurts.

[46:45] And so he drove out the man and placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of life. That word there to drive out it means to like thrust out to send out.

[46:59] Jesus does the same thing to us. In Matthew 10 verse 16 he says behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves by you be you therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

[47:14] So the same kind of thing he's sending them out he's thrusting them out. Matthew 9 verse 38 Then said he unto his disciples the harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few.

[47:26] Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth literally to thrust forth laborers into his harvest. You say now wait a minute. Last week you told us that the Lord always leads Satan always pushes and now here you have the Lord pushing.

[47:42] Yeah. John 10 4 one of my favorite scriptures. And when he puts forth his own sheep he puts them forth. There's that moment of like I've been put forth.

[47:52] Lord he goes before them and the sheep follow him and they know his voice. There's that moment when God puts us forth that's kind of scary. For Adam and Eve it must have been terrifying to leave the garden and to go out into a world now that's under the curse.

[48:07] But they weren't alone. God made provision for them didn't he? Verse 24 could better be translated or worded and he dwelt between the cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a fierce fire or Shekinah unfolding itself to preserve the way of the tree of life.

[48:25] And there God sets up his presence. And that's where Adam most likely he would come to meet with God. Because Adam's going to pass on to Cain and Abel this idea of sacrifice. So he must have gotten it from the Lord when the Lord killed that first animal.

[48:38] And so there he sets this up. In Exodus Moses is told that that's where God's going to commune with him. He says, you shall put the mercy seat above the ark of the covenant and in the ark you shall put the testimony I give you and there I will meet with you and I will commune with you from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony.

[49:00] That's where God desires to meet with his people. That's where he meets with Adam. We think, oh, there's a big sword there. And I used to think as a kid like Sunday school, man, I wonder what would have happened if Adam tried to get back in.

[49:11] God would have just cut him in half with that sword on fire. You know, I don't know. Poor Eve, she would have been all alone and that would have been the end of that. But, you know, you're a little boy in Sunday school. And he realized, okay, God wasn't doing that until like he's going to chop their heads off.

[49:25] God's saying, this is where my presence is. This is as far as you can come. And under this system of sacrifice, it's going to represent your ability to come to me. Well, Jesus did that. Jesus, we see between two, don't we?

[49:39] Two cherubim? No, not at first, right? This is the curse. Jesus became a curse for us. He took upon him our sin. It was made sin for us. Matthew 27, 38.

[49:50] Then were two thieves crucified with him. One on the right hand, the other on the left. And there's Jesus. Where do we go to meet the presence of God? Where is God's presence on earth when Jesus was on the cross?

[50:02] Not in the temple. If anybody in the world wanted to meet with God, they had to go to the cross and see a man hanging there, dying between two thieves. And his rightful place is in heaven between two cherubim.

[50:16] But it didn't stay that way. Just like for Adam, it doesn't end in death. John 20, verse 11 and 12. But Mary Magdalene stood without at the sepulcher, weeping on resurrection morning.

[50:27] And as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher. And she sees two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And there we see the cherubim, the two angels, and between it where we meet with God.

[50:42] And that's where we come. We come because there's a new and a living way that Jesus had made for us. God put the sword there to keep the way of the tree of life. And there's been a way that's now kept for us.

[50:54] In Hebrews 10, we're told that we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way. So that we are to draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled by that sacrifice from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

[51:13] We can draw near because of that new and living way. And so sin, sin that separates, God had a plan for it.

[51:23] His word spoke into the situation. It brought protection. It set boundaries. And it gave purpose. Adam and Eve had purpose despite the sinful situation they were in.

[51:36] And a correct relationship with God through Christ is the only way for us to take care of the curse of sin. And so God preserves us because he's reserved for us a home in heaven. And pain?

[51:48] It hurts. We're still called to serve, guys. We're called to serve, but we do it in the presence of thorns and thistles. But isn't that the case sometimes? You want to love someone. You go to serve them.

[51:58] You're like, ow! Man! What was that? I was just trying to love you. You jabbed me. Good grief. Nothing but pricks and prickles. Right? Well, we still have to serve, but it's there.

[52:09] But Jesus took those thorns. Right? He took them. Every single thorn he took in his brow. So when we get pricked, when we get poked, what does it remind us of? Sin hurts! But Jesus also took that hurt.

[52:22] For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. So in the first Adam, we lost perfection.

[52:33] But in the second Adam, we gained a promise. And God promises that through the pain, through the sin, and through the suffering, that there's resurrection life that we get to have.

[52:44] And I think Adam, when he named Eve, when he looked at her and said, you're the mother of all living, that he saw in that, that promise that God had given back there, the first instance of the gospel.

[52:57] This is one of my favorite scriptures. And I was thinking of Jesus bearing that grief and that pain and that sorrow. It says in Isaiah 53, 4-5, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

[53:14] Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. And that's that idea of the curse. Right? Curse meant abhorrence, reviling, inspiring disgust.

[53:27] We pulled away. We looked at Jesus and we saw on him all of our sin. And we were like, disgusted by that. But he was wounded for our transgressions.

[53:38] He was bruised for our iniquities. It was my sin that bruised him, crushed him. His body was crushed. The heel was absolutely crushed.

[53:50] But in doing that, he crushed the head of the serpent. This is one of my favorite phrases in all the Bible. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. I like that. The punishment and the consequences that led to peace that I can't get myself because I have a chastisement upon me.

[54:08] Man, I can't find, I can't get peace. I have to pay this consequence of sin. Well, that can only be paid in death. I'm never going to know peace. That's why people say, oh, when I go to my rest, because life's hard.

[54:20] It hurts. Sin hurts. There's no rest in this life except through Christ. The chastisement of my peace. I can have peace because he took that upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed.

[54:33] He was crushed, his body broken, so that through it, I have healing. And so the word of God, long after the enemy's done his work, comes in. It gives finality to sin and it gives hope to us.

[54:48] And so as we end and we do these two more songs, just respond to the Lord. He's spoken to you. He's spoken to me. Hear his voice. He loves you.

[54:59] There's no sin that separates that he is not taken care of. Every thorn he took, right? The chastisement of your peace is on him. He says, hey, that's on me. I got that.