Fall

[0:00] Open your Bibles up to Genesis chapter 3. We have been slowly but surely walking through these opening chapters of Genesis.! And our plan is to cover the first 11 chapters over the next few months.

[0:13] Hopefully we'll finish that before Easter or right around the time of Easter so that we can shift our focus to the death and resurrection of Jesus in the accounts of the Gospels. But for now we're still in these early chapters of Genesis.

[0:25] And this morning we're going to read all of chapter 3. So I want you to hang with me. I know it's several verses, but I want you to read through all of it with me. So you guys stand. Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 24.

[0:39] Moses writes, Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

[0:53] And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

[1:05] But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die? For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

[1:15] So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

[1:29] Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of day.

[1:44] The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.

[2:01] He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.

[2:16] Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.

[2:32] On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

[2:44] He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

[2:59] And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

[3:10] Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

[3:23] The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

[3:34] Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

[3:49] He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Thank you for your word, Father.

[4:00] We come now, not only to gain knowledge, but to have our hearts transformed by it. So help us, we ask in Christ's name. Amen.

[4:12] You guys take a seat. Genesis chapter 3 tells us how we move from the world that was to the world that now is.

[4:24] It tells us how we move from a pristine, good, even very good creation in which there is no sin, in which there is no death, in which there is no pain, in which all things are as God intended them to be, to the world that we now live in.

[4:41] A world that is filled with violence, a world that is filled with bloodshed, a world that is filled with pain and heartache and sickness and suffering, and all the things that we see around us every day.

[4:53] All the heartaches that we experience on a regular basis trace back to the events that occur here in Genesis chapter 3. It's really remarkable when you think about it.

[5:05] I mean, when you consider the world that God made, He has already declared it to be very good at the end of chapter 1. And then He's fashioned man and formed man after His image and created a wife for man who's also made in His image.

[5:22] He's put them in the garden. He's given them everything that they need. Here's all these trees that you may eat of. Here's everything that you need to sustain you. Here's a world that will bend to your will as you exercise dominion over it.

[5:35] Everything you need right here for you. All things are good and well. And yet, we find ourselves in a world that does not look like that world at all.

[5:48] We find ourselves in a sick, fallen, sinful, depraved world. And if we're to understand not only how we're supposed to respond and how we're supposed to live in this world, but how we're supposed to have hope in the midst of a fallen world, we need to understand precisely how we got here, how we came to be at this place.

[6:10] And that's what this chapter aims to tell us. It's really pretty simple. The first seven verses of this chapter tell us the actual story of the entrance of sin into our world. The story of the fall of mankind.

[6:23] And then verses 8, all the way to the end of the chapter, speak of God's response to that fall. So let's just look at those two sections of this chapter and let's begin by spending some time looking at the events themselves so that we can understand really the nature of what's happening here.

[6:41] So take a look at verse 1. We're told that there was a serpent who came on the scene. The serpent who was craftier, that is, wiser, trickier than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

[6:53] Now, pause there for just a moment because the book of Genesis does not give us any direct clues as to who or what this serpent really is.

[7:05] Now, if you make your way through the Old Testament, you will come to a book called the book of Job, which speaks of one who's called the Satan, the accuser, who acts in many ways like the serpent in the garden, who resembles the serpent in the garden in many ways.

[7:22] And there's good reason for that because this serpent is indeed the accuser of the book of Job. Now, how do I know that if Moses doesn't tell me that here in Genesis chapter 3?

[7:34] Is it just sort of Christian tradition that we identify this snake in the garden with Satan himself? No, it's much more than that because the Bible itself tells us the identity of the serpent.

[7:47] In fact, hold your place there in Genesis chapter 3 and turn all the way to the back of your Bible to Revelation chapter 20. We have seen over and over that the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, sheds great light upon the beginning of the Bible for us.

[8:02] And vice versa. If we were studying the book of Revelation, we would constantly travel back to these opening chapters of Genesis because these two books not only serve as the beginning and end of our Bibles, but they tie together everything in the middle.

[8:15] Revelation chapter 20, we're told this, in verse 2, that there's an angel on the scene and this angel sees the dragon, we're told. And then the dragon is described.

[8:27] That ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan. The ancient serpent, the serpent from of old, the serpent of Genesis chapter 3, who is in fact the devil and Satan.

[8:41] So that's the identity. Let there be no doubt that this is who we're dealing with. This is not simply some ancient silly story with talking animals. This is a real historical account in which Satan is using a serpent to throw a wrench into God's creation.

[9:01] We saw last week why he would do something like that. I said last week that what Satan is doing here is reversing God's created order. Because in Genesis chapter 2, there's a clear sort of hierarchy.

[9:12] You have, of course, God, the creator of all things. And then you have Adam and then Adam's wife. They're both created in God's image and yet they have distinct roles and Adam is in a position of leadership within the home there.

[9:26] So you have God and then Adam and then the woman and then the man and the woman together have dominion over all the creatures of the earth. And so chapter 3 begins to reverse that.

[9:37] First, Satan comes in the guise of a created thing, a living creature according to chapter 1. He comes in the guise of an animal, a serpent in this case.

[9:49] And he addresses not Adam, but Adam's wife. And finally, Adam comes on the scene towards the end of these first seven verses and God doesn't appear upon the scene until verse 8.

[10:00] So everything is reversed. In chapter 2, God, man, woman, creatures. In chapter 3, creatures, woman, man, God.

[10:11] And so it shouldn't shock us or surprise us that Satan would come in the form of a living creature, a snake in particular, because he's up to something. He's already subtly trying to introduce things that are contrary to God's created order simply by appearing in this form.

[10:28] So the serpent is more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And then he comes to Eve. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

[10:44] Now, the first thing that we need to recognize here about the fall and about temptation in general is that it begins with a questioning and a twisting of God's Word.

[10:55] That's the nature of temptation and that's the nature of sin. It begins to question and distort the Word of God. Notice what he says. He says, Did God really say?

[11:07] In other words, he's calling into question whether or not God really said the thing that Eve believes that God said. We hear this kind of thing all the time.

[11:18] We know, we've been told or we've heard that certain things are in the Bible and yet those things run against the grain of our culture or they run against the grain of maybe what we've been taught growing up.

[11:28] And so there's this reaction against it to say, Well, did God really say that? I mean, surely that's not what the Bible really means. Surely it means something else.

[11:39] And that's exactly what Satan begins to do here. God has given a clear command in chapter 2 to Adam. You can eat of any of the trees in the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil, do not eat from it.

[11:49] You shall not eat from it. It's a clear, obvious command. It's not tricky. There's nothing confusing about it. And yet Satan comes and says, Now, did he really say that?

[12:04] There's an undercurrent here that you'll miss if you don't pay very close attention to the actual words used in this passage. Because this questioning of God's Word is aimed to, I believe, fracture the relationship that exists between Adam and Eve and between God Himself.

[12:24] I want you to notice something. Turn over to chapter 1. I just want to show you quickly. In chapter 1, verse 1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 3, And God said.

[12:37] Verse 6, And God said. And on and on and on. Verse 26, Then 6, Then God said. Verse 28, And God blessed. Over and over throughout chapter 1, God is simply called God.

[12:51] God. The word is the word Elohim. And it's very similar to the English word for God. It's a generic term for deity. It just means God. And most of the time in the Old Testament it refers to the true God.

[13:04] But if you need to refer to a false God, you use the same word. It's just the word for God. And as God is presented in chapter 1 as the creator of all things, He's presented in simple language.

[13:16] He's just God. He's the only God that exists. He made all things and yet He is simply God. But in chapter 2, when the focus shifts from the creation in general to the fashioning of man and woman in the image of God, these who will share a unique relationship with Him, the language suddenly changes.

[13:37] Now He's not simply called God. He's called the Lord God. Look in chapter 2, verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

[13:52] And it's consistent. Verse 5, in the middle. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land. Verse 7, Then the Lord God formed the man of dust. Verse 8, The Lord God planted a garden in Eden.

[14:05] Verse 9, The Lord God made to spring up every tree. It is consistent throughout chapter 2. Over and over, He is not simply God. He's not simply Elohim.

[14:15] He is the Lord God. Now the word God is the same word from chapter 1. It's the word Elohim. And again, it's just a general term for God. But the word Lord in your English translations ought to be written in all capital letters.

[14:29] Is it? Shake your head, look down, see? Okay? It's all capital letters. That's very important. It tells us what Hebrew word is being translated here. It's not some general word for Lord.

[14:40] There is a word, Adonai, in Hebrew that means Lord or Master. That's not the word here. When you see the word Lord in all capital letters in the Old Testament in your English Bible, it means that the word that's being translated is God's personal covenant name, Yahweh, or sometimes pronounced Jehovah.

[14:58] That's the name used here. Yahweh. It is His covenant name. It's the name by which He identifies Himself to Moses in the burning bush. It's the name by which He is known among His people in Israel.

[15:10] It is His covenant name that identifies Him as the God who is and the God who rules and lives in relationship with the people that He's called out. And now He creates a people for Himself and He is uniquely their covenant God.

[15:25] They live in covenant with Him. They live in relationship with Him. Now chapter 3. We begin with Moses' simple comment and Moses continues to identify Him as the Lord God.

[15:40] But how does Satan speak? He said to the woman, did God actually say? It's a strange, it's just a sudden shift.

[15:51] It's been Lord God, Lord God, Lord God consistently and then suddenly God. And Eve picks up on this and she repeats it. Verses 2 and 3.

[16:03] The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said. Satan responds in verse 5. God knows. And so the undercurrent that's happening here as the Word of God is being questioned is that of minimizing and eventually destroying the covenant relationship that exists between Adam and Eve and God Himself.

[16:28] Satan does not address God or does not bring up God's name in the context of the loving covenant relationship that he shares with Adam and Eve. Rather, he's just some distant, vague creator.

[16:41] That's all he is in Satan's mouth. It's very important because if you're going to put a wedge between God's people and God's Word, you must first begin to convince them that God is not the loving God of the covenant that we have known Him to be.

[16:59] You must first begin to convince them that God does not have the best interest of His people in mind that rather than increase the joy of His people and maximize the joy of His people in relationship with Him, God instead is aiming to squelch our joy.

[17:17] You first have to convince God's people of that and that's exactly what He begins to do. As He begins to call into question God's Word, He does it in such a way as to begin to break down the relationship between God and His people.

[17:31] Notice, Eve responds well in general, but she's beginning, you can already see that she's beginning to speak on Satan's terms by using the word Elohim by itself, but nevertheless, she doesn't fall for his initial ruse.

[17:48] We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. Satan had twisted God's command. He had said, God says you can't eat from any of the trees, when in fact, God had allowed them to eat from all the trees, save one.

[18:01] He says you can't eat from any of the trees and Eve says, no, no, no, that's not right because in fact, God does allow us to eat from the trees that are in the garden. There's just this one tree that we're not allowed to eat from and Eve adds the phrase and we cannot touch it.

[18:18] Whether or not that is a sinful addition by Eve or whether or not that's simply Eve's way of distancing herself and keeping herself away from the temptation of eating it, we don't know.

[18:30] But nevertheless, Eve correctly identifies the basic command of God. You can eat from all the trees but not this one. And so Satan's first attempt has not succeeded completely but he has been able to drive that wedge.

[18:45] Eve is no longer now thinking primarily in terms of the covenant relationship she has with God. she's just simply stating the facts. Now, the story moves forward. He's questioned God's word but now he's going to challenge it directly.

[18:59] The serpent said to the woman in verse 4, you will not surely die. Now it's moved from twisting and distorting and questioning God's word to now it's in outright denial.

[19:15] God has said clearly, if you eat from this tree, you will die. Eve understands that. She's communicated that. No. God said if we eat from this particular tree, you will die. To which Satan responds, you're not going to die.

[19:27] God's a liar. He's not out to do what's best for you. And all of his warnings are aimed not to protect you.

[19:38] They're aimed to keep you from something that would be good for you. He says, God knows, verse 5, God knows, that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

[19:57] I said last week that that phrase, knowing good and evil, is not by itself a negative thing. It's not. It's used in other places in the Old Testament to describe a person who has come to an age, a point of age where they have discernment and they possess wisdom and they're able to make right choices.

[20:15] And so, frequently in the Old Testament we read about someone reaching an age at which they knew good from evil. That is, they're now wise. They now can see and discern things.

[20:26] It's not by itself a negative issue. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood as a test for Adam and Eve.

[20:39] Would they trust that God Himself could wisely, correctly determine and discern what was good and bad for them? Or, would they try to usurp God's authority and decide on their own what course was right for them?

[20:58] That's the fundamental issue at play here. Will they trust in God and will they trust in His Word and believe that He has the right to determine the course of their lives? Or, will they question God's Word, question God's motives, assume authority and autonomy for themselves and try to make their own way and determine their own course in life?

[21:21] That's the fundamental issue here. This is not about fruit. This is not about good trees and bad trees. This is about, is God sovereign over your life and your decisions and does He determine the course that you take or do you fight against Him and do you try to go your own way?

[21:38] Do you doubt and deny His Word or do you faithfully follow and trust in His Word? And Satan's goal here, as it always is, is to sever the relationship between God and His people and to lead us away so that we begin to think we know right from wrong.

[22:01] We can make all the decisions. We can do this on our own. And then notice the course of events here. Verse 6, it says, So, having heard this, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one wise.

[22:24] Now, pause for a second there because there's never been any indication in Genesis chapters 2 and 3 that the fruit on the tree was anything other than a delight to the eyes and good for food.

[22:35] There's nothing in chapter 2 that would lead you to think that this is poison to fruit or that this is bitter, nasty, disgusting fruit or that it's ugly fruit.

[22:46] There's nothing in there at all. The assumption all along is that this fruit appears outwardly to be like the rest of the fruit of the garden. It is desirable to the eyes. It probably does taste good.

[22:58] That's nothing new. It's just that now she's beginning to pay attention to it. And she adds another category in there. It's desirable now to make one wise.

[23:11] Desirable now to declare one's own freedom from God himself. And so it says that she took of its fruit and ate.

[23:23] And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. He was with her the whole time. Up to that point you might think where's Adam in all of this, right?

[23:34] I mean, after all, Eve wasn't, Eve didn't even exist yet when God gave the commandment to Adam. She didn't exist. God hadn't caused deep sleep to fall upon him and fashioned the woman from his side and all those sorts.

[23:46] None of that had happened. God gave Adam the command pertaining to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before he created Eve. Which means for Eve to be able to repeat it back to the serpent means that Adam had taught her.

[23:59] Adam had shown her, okay, we can eat all of these, but we can't eat from this, we want to stay away from this, God says don't do that. Adam had taught her. He was responsible to do that. And you think, where's Adam?

[24:12] Surely if Adam were there, surely he would save the day, surely he would step in and protect his wife and guard her from this creature crawling through the garden, talking when it shouldn't be talking.

[24:24] Surely he would, wouldn't he? but he doesn't. And he's there the entire time. When you move to the New Testament and you see the New Testament appraisal of these events, Eve is not presented in nearly as negative a light as Adam in regard to these things.

[24:44] In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that the woman Eve was deceived, which is exactly what Eve tells God. He tricked me, he deceived me, and yet for Adam, the Apostle Paul, he doesn't have any sympathy.

[25:00] For Eve, there's sympathy. She was deceived. But for Adam, there's no sympathy. Why? Because he was the leader. Because he was the one to whom the command had been directly given.

[25:12] Because he had a task, he had a job to do, not only to operate as a priest within the garden, but also to protect his wife, and he failed to do it, and he stood by while the serpent tempted his wife.

[25:26] He was with her the whole time. And then he took, and he ate, and verse 7 tells us that the eyes of both of them were open, and they don't suddenly become wise.

[25:40] They knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and they made themselves loincauts. This is the first hint of the consequences and the fallout of Adam and Eve's sins.

[25:54] That now we're going to begin to see from this verse all the way down through the end of the chapter, the consequences of their decision. But before we began to think so negatively about Adam and Eve, and before we begin to jump into the consequences, which we need to see clearly, we need to understand that we're not greatly different from them.

[26:14] We're not. because we fall into the same traps over and over. In fact, turn over to the book of James, chapter 1. James speaks of temptation that comes to each one of us.

[26:31] And in James, chapter 1, verse 11, he tells us this about temptation. He says that each one of us is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

[26:43] Is that not what we see happening here? She sees the fruit. It's a delight to the eyes. It looks like it tastes good. It's desirable to make you wise. She's beginning to desire it.

[26:56] Then, when desire has conceived, James tells us that it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So we are not all that different from Adam and Eve.

[27:08] We follow the same course. Temptation is presented to us. God's word is clear. He has said, do this, or don't do this, and yet the temptation arises, and we see that there may be some good, desirable things in the sin itself.

[27:24] It looks good to the eyes. It looks like I might enjoy it. It looks like a course that I might want to take. There may be some benefit from it for me. We begin to desire it. Here's the problem.

[27:36] When one's temptation gives birth to sin, sin always, always leads to death, just as God promised in His word.

[27:49] In the day that you eat of it, you will die. That, of course, is not the only consequence here because immediately the first consequence that Adam and Eve experience is that they see that they're naked.

[28:02] What does that mean? What's the significance of that? Why all this emphasis upon the nakedness of Adam and Eve? I think the point of it is that they now feel guilt and shame.

[28:14] They're now aware that they have a new status before God. They were His people. They lived in His garden under His blessing no longer.

[28:28] Now they live under condemnation. They are now in the category of guilty. guilty. And they know it.

[28:40] And they try, feebly as they might, to remedy the situation by covering up their nakedness as if their physical nakedness is the real issue. The real issue here is far deeper than that.

[28:52] It is far bigger than that because the implications for these events pierce all the way to the heart of Adam and Eve and all of their descendants. When you begin to think about all of the consequences of these events just straightforwardly, very quickly told in seven verses, here's the story, here's what happens, and yet the rest of the Bible is devoted to helping us to understand everything that unfolds from these events.

[29:24] From this one action, the rest of human history unfolds. I want you to look as it's described here because we're going to see amazing implications for us in how we view the world.

[29:40] In verse 8, God begins, He comes to Adam and Eve and He begins to address them and of course they shift the blame. Adam shifts the blame to Eve and then shifts the blame to the serpent. And it's not until you get to verse 14 that God begins to directly state the consequences of their rebellion.

[29:57] And He begins with the serpent. He begins with Satan. Verse 14, The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you've done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

[30:12] Verse 15 is key and we'll come back to it, but He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

[30:24] Ultimately, we'll look at this in detail in a minute, but ultimately, for Satan, for the serpent, destruction is decreed. His end is set already in Genesis chapter 3.

[30:36] But for Adam and Eve, there's more in store. Already we know that death is a certainty. In fact, in a real sense, death has already occurred for them. Because the moment they sinned, spiritual death became their reality.

[30:51] No longer are their hearts beating and alive. now they have dead, fallen, sinful hearts. The Apostle Paul says that we, before coming to Christ, we were all dead in our trespasses and sins.

[31:04] More than that, he says that we are by nature, that is, we are by birth children of wrath. So that now, Adam and Eve and all of their descendants after them, now they've experienced death already.

[31:17] Physical death is coming. It's inevitable for them. Life outside the garden will end in death. Yet death has already come to them in a very real way. But it's not only death.

[31:30] There are other consequences. With Eve, she will suffer in her two primary roles, that of mother and that of wife. Verse 16, to the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.

[31:43] In pain, you shall bring forth children. Every mother here knows that's true. It's absolutely true. The curse has gone on. But then it moves on.

[31:54] He says, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. So, in her role as mother, it will be experienced through pain. And now, her role as wife will come with great pain and turmoil as well.

[32:10] It's hard to understand, really, initially, exactly what is meant here. Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. Some have said, well, this is where male hierarchy comes from.

[32:22] All this business about men being leaders in the home and men being leaders of the church, all of that is a product of the fall, and so we should get rid of it. But that's not actually what this passage is telling us.

[32:33] It's not telling us that men will lord it over women because of the fall. It's telling us that there will be a struggle between men and women. The closest parallel we can find to this particular phrase is in the next chapter, or two chapters over.

[32:51] I want to just turn the page over. Sorry, next chapter, chapter 4. Look down in chapter 4 in the story of Cain and Abel. Chapter 4, verse 7. God says to Cain, why are you angry and why has your face fallen?

[33:05] If you do well, will you not be accepted? Here it is. If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

[33:18] Now mark that down because that's the same wording that we see here in God's statement to Eve. Your desire will be for your husband. Sin's desire is for you. But he will rule over you.

[33:31] But you must rule over it. The point here in chapter 4 is Cain, there will be desires that creep up in you and the only way to combat those desires is to master them and to rule over them.

[33:48] And the same will be true of the relationships between men and women. Wives will desire and want to take authority and the only answer to it is that it won't happen because the men must exercise their authority.

[34:07] Not like it was in the beginning. A happy, glad, joyful submission. A godly, loving, sacrificial leadership. It's not like that now. You know that if you're married.

[34:18] It's not like that all the time. It's a struggle. Men struggle to lead as they ought. Women struggle to honor their husband's leadership as they ought in marriage. It's a struggle.

[34:28] It's a fight. And this is a part of the fall. It brings with it it brings with it pain in the two primary roles that most women play mother and wife.

[34:40] But for Adam things are even worse. Because for Adam it's not just in his relationship with his wife that he's going to suffer. It's in his entire vocation.

[34:51] It's in everything that he's called to do. Notice what he says. To Adam he says because you listen to the voice of your wife. In other words you stood by and you didn't lead and you didn't protect.

[35:03] You just listened. You just obeyed what she said to do and you ate the fruit and because of that because of that cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

[35:15] Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. I mean Adam's task in the garden was to work it and to keep it and yet God abundantly supplied all that they needed.

[35:31] It was not a difficult job. Dominion over the earth was not a difficult task for Adam and Eve in the garden but now it will be. Now all of Adam's existence and everything that man is to do on the earth in exercising dominion over the earth in providing for his family in simply surviving will be a fight and a battle.

[35:55] At the end of the day we might summarize the temporal consequences of Adam and Eve's sins upon them and in one word pain. Pain you'll bear children.

[36:09] In pain you will get food from the ground. And look around you look at the world. It is a world riddled with pain.

[36:19] all of it dating back to this one event. But of course the major consequence of sin is not simply the pain that we endure throughout our lives it's the end of it all.

[36:37] Verse 19 You'll do this until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are a dust and to dust you shall return. The ultimate penalty of course for the fall is death.

[36:51] And not simply the physical death the spiritual death we're talking about. That Adam and Eve have been cut off from the source of life. They no longer have access direct access to God himself.

[37:07] They're internally spiritually dead. And they will someday be physically dead. And that judgment falls not only upon Adam and Eve it falls upon all of us.

[37:25] Turn over to Romans chapter 5 I want you to see this for yourself because I think sometimes we we read the account in Genesis chapter 3 as simply something that happened to Adam and Eve and it has some implications but it's a long time ago but in reality it bears directly upon us.

[37:45] Romans chapter 5 verse 12 we're told that sin came into the world through one man and because of that he says death spread through sin and so death spread to all men because all sin so death enters not only Adam and Eve's lives but it enters into the world and it enters into all of humanity because of what they've done.

[38:07] More than that verse 15 says that if many died through one man's trespass the middle of verse 16 says that the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation and verse 17 says because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man verse 18 says one trespass led to condemnation for all men and verse 19 says that by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners this is what we're talking about when we use the term original sin original sin does not refer to Adam and Eve's sin in the garden original sin refers to all the results that come out of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden original sin falls upon you and me we are born into this world spiritually dead children of God's wrath we come into this world already under the just condemnation of God condemnation came to all men why?

[39:13] because Adam sinned or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 in Adam all die all of us spiritually dead separated from the only source of life available to us and yet in the midst of all of this in Genesis chapter 3 there is a bright shining ray of hope for us remember in the midst of God's words to the serpent spoke to him about this enmity this strife and fighting between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman look at it in verse 15 I'll put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring and here's the promise or in this case it's a warning to Satan he the offspring of the woman he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel there will be a seed there will be an offspring of the woman who will come into the world at some point in time and though the serpent will do harm to him the serpent will bruise his heel in the process of hurting the seed of the woman the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent there's one coming there's one coming

[40:44] Moses says who will fix all of this who will set all of this right and in every way that Adam failed this one will succeed and when Jesus came onto the scene as he walks through the gospels like Adam he is faced with temptation directly from Satan himself but unlike Adam he never questions God's word he never doubts God's word and he never gives in to the temptation in fact the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus was tempted just as we are in every way that we are and yet he was without sin in every way that Adam fails here in Genesis chapter 3 Jesus succeeds in his 30 some odd years upon the earth Adam was an abject utter failure as the head of the human race and yet Jesus has come to be the head of a new race of people he's come to lead new people not into death but into life he has come to fix all that went wrong notice how this chapter

[41:53] Genesis chapter 3 ends verse 22 it seems a strange way to end it verse 22 the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil in other words he's decided to try to determine his own way he thinks that he's wise now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and live forever therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden to work the ground from which he has taken he drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life what's that all about what does that mean it means that for Adam for Adam's descendants we cannot gain access to the tree of life on our own we cannot we cannot simply venture back into the garden and go up to the tree of life and say I'm sorry for what I did I shouldn't have eaten from that tree I'm going to eat from this tree now it'll fix everything it'll make everything right

[42:53] I'll just take care of it myself that's no longer possible you can't you cannot simply cover up sin in your own life by trying to balance it out and do something good on the other hand it's not how God's judgment works it's not a scale he doesn't just weigh the good things you've done versus the bad things you've done because once sin has entered in your heart is fully corrupt we'll see that as we move through the next few chapters of Genesis the corruption the deep total depravity of man in the heart of man is there it runs through and because of that you cannot simply pile up a bunch of good things to overcome the bad you can't simply go back into the garden take from the tree of life and erase the sin that you committed because from now on everything that you do is tainted with sin everything that you do flows out of a cold dead sinful heart and even the things that we would on the surface level say well that's a good thing it's only good relative to other sinners it's never good relative to God's standards and God's demands all things done utterly and fully for the glory of God we cannot live like that the apostle

[44:05] Paul says the mind set on the flesh cannot obey God's law we cannot do it the way to the tree of life through our own efforts is barred for us we cannot earn life for ourselves everything we might do to try to earn life comes from cold dead hearts we are incapable and what we need is one who will earn it for us what we need is one who will die the death that has been decreed for us and what we have is one who has earned it for us what we have is one who has died the death that has been decreed for us in Galatians chapter 3 the apostle Paul says that Jesus became a curse in 2nd

[45:06] Corinthians chapter 5 he says that God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God the seed of the woman has come he has lived he has been obedient he has conquered the enemy he has conquered the serpent he has won victory and yet that victory only belongs to those who trust in him sin began with a failure to trust in God sin is fixed by trusting fully in the son of God who laid himself down for us let's pray through!

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