If you know where we are in Genesis 3, you are aware that
the second part of Genesis 3 is about the gospel.
We've already sing it explicitly and a few of our songs, and
we're going to sing it again in the closing.
So I can just walk off the stage right now, right?
No, if, if you would go ahead and turn in your Bibles to
Genesis chapter 3. We'll finish out chapter 3 this
morning. And then next week, of course,
is Christmas. So we'll begin our Advent series
in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Indy and company have found a a buried temple that they believe
houses the the Ark of the Covenant.
So in order to assess the situation and conditions, they,
they, they drop a torch down into the opening of the roof
upon the realization that the temple is filled with snakes in
the response snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
I think we can all all sorry young ones, you probably have no
idea what we're what I'm talking about here.
But the rest of us, we all can envision this week.
We remember this in our minds. In general, people have a great
revulsion for snakes and and they can sympathize with Indy's
condition here in his attitude. I would venture to say
humanity's feelings towards snakes probably stems from this
moment in Scripture. So if you would, if you're able,
would you stand? As we read from Genesis chapter
3, and this is going to be a pretty lengthy section, we're
going from chap from chapter, from verse 8 all the way through
the end to verse 24. We will read the entire section.
Verse 8. And they heard the sound of the
Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of
the Lord God 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. 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. 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, curse it Are you above all livestock and above all beasts
of the field. 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. He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise his heel. And to the woman, he said, I
will surely multiply your pain and childbearing and pain.
You shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your
husband, and he shall rule over you.
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.
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, for, out of it you're taking for your dust, and to dust you
shall return. 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. Then the Lord God said, Behold,
the man has become like one of us, and 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 from the Garden of Eden to work the
ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the
east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim in a flaming
sword that turned every way to guard the way to the Tree of
Life. You may be seated.
Here in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve's sin results in the
brokenness of creation. It shattered their ability to
reflect the image of God as clearly as they were designed
to. And here the biblical narrative
shifts from creation to corruption as as the curse
descends not just upon human beings, but upon all of
creation. So as we finish out chapter 3,
we'll examine what I would like to call a three fold curse.
And then we'll also look at 3 blessings in the midst of the
curse. There are three different
entities that receive curses in light of the simple acts of the
first humans. And of course, the first curse
is on the serpent. It's on the serpent.
We first see that the serpent was.
He was cursed to crawl on its belly and eats dust is what the
text says. Notice so far that I've referred
to the serpent as a serpent and not as a snake.
I've not referred to it as a snake because the common
interpretation of this passage is that is that this particular
serpent likely had legs. You see, a snake is a legless
carnivorous reptile belonging to the suborder Serpentes.
And it's speculated that the serpent originally had legs
because in in verse 14, it's condemned to crawl on its belly,
right. So if it had crawled on its
belly then already, then that wouldn't necessarily be a curse.
There are various interpretations of this passage,
but whether or not it had legs isn't as important as what the
serpent did. It acted outside of God's
design. In Leviticus 1142, as God was
giving the law, he said whatever goes on its belly shouldn't be
eaten because it's detestable, it's unclean, it's not fit for
consumption. The serpent was also sentenced
to eat dust all the days of its life.
Now today, we understand eating dust as an idiom for being left
behind in in a race or a a competition.
It's not a reference to the serpent's diet rights.
The person eating dust is so far behind an off track that they're
left in that proverbial cloud of dust by the other person who far
excels them. Eating dust had a similar
meaning for the ancient Near East.
Psalm 72. There on the screen it says may
he have dominion from sea to sea.
This is King Solomon writing to the future heir of David's
throne. May he have dominion from sea to
sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.
May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies.
Lick the dust sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
Just licking the dust sounds great.
Licking dust was a sign of defeat in the ancient Near East.
Interestingly, when Isaiah speaks to the coming future
reign of Christ where where everything reverts back to a
garden like state, he calls out the serpent, specifically Isaiah
6525. You'll see there on the screen,
the wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall
eat straw like ox and dust shall be the serpent's food.
Life under the Messiah's reign will be a return back to the
vegetarian ideal that was set up in the first couple chapters of
Genesis. The wolf and lamb will will
graze together and the and the lion, instead of choosing other
animals, chooses to eat straw, not meat, but the serpent.
The serpent's food will continue to be dust.
The curse won't be reversed for for the serpent and it and it
will remain in that lowly state for the rest of time.
So that's the curse on the serpent.
And in the, in the second-half, I'll, I'll dress the rest of the
curse on the serpent because it's really the climax of our
message this morning. Next is the curse on the woman.
This is the curse on the woman. Technically speaking, the the
text doesn't say that she's cursed like it does say of the
serpent and and it will say of the ground.
But there are definitely consequences for her actions.
And, and from a New Testament perspective, we call this
specific moment in time. We call it the curse.
So verse 16 reads, So 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.
Part of the curse involved pain and bearing children.
It involved pain and bearing children.
Over the years there's been a lot of discussion about what
this means. Does it mean she was already set
to experience some pain and and the curse is now just adding to
it and or does it mean she would now experience pain and giving
birth to children and, and it wasn't intended for her to
experience pain? Because if you look at the
animal Kingdom, animals don't really experience pain, it
seems. Well, as with many things in
this part of Genesis, we can only go off of what the text
says when we when we're trying to interpret it.
But even then it can be difficult to interpret what it
means. Regardless the process, the
process would become quite laborious.
One of the words used here, the Hebrew word ITSA bone, means
toil. It is used in the very next
verse to actually speak of how hard work would become for the
man he has to work out in the field.
It specifically speaks of hard labor and now the process of
having a baby means the woman also would experience hard
labor. This pain then is a is a
reminder that the woman helped conceive sin and and into the
human race and she passes the sin on to her children.
I have to say this wasn't planned, but we've not
experienced this in our household, so we don't actually
know what that pain is like, which is really weird to have
two children and not know what happens in the delivery room.
Because of both children, we got to pick their dates when they
were born. It was kind of nice.
One was born December 7th. I was like, can we pick a
different day than December 7th? Right.
Like who wants to have their birthday on December 7th, Pearl
Harbor Day, in case you hadn't made that connection.
Well, doctors like, well, that's the day we're going to do it.
OK, so Ari was born by C-section on December 7th.
Couple years later, oh, how about June 6th?
June 6th escaped my mind. I wasn't thinking about what
June 6th was, so I didn't ask for a different day.
Actually, I did. I asked for June 9th because I
thought it would be cool for Micah to be born on his
grandma's birthday. Doctors like, no, we're going to
do June 6th after he's born. I realized, hold on, there's
another very significant day, D-Day, in our nation's history.
So I will never forget those days.
But yeah, it is great. We didn't go through the whole
labor thing. I watched them both be born as
they were cut out of Louisiana's stomach.
It was really cool. It was really neat standing up
there just watching. Oh, that's really neat.
Then I had to sit down for a moment after that.
So. But I am told that labor is a
horrible thing. Anyways, moving on.
That was just an aside that that was for free.
The second set of consequences on the woman is a strained
marriage. A strained marriage.
I hadn't planned to share that. We hadn't even talked about
that. But now you know, prior to sin,
the relationship between the husband and wife was it was
harmonious and it was easy, even with the ideal that Genesis 2
had set up with the husband as being the federal head.
The husband is the head of the relationship, represents the
relationship to God. He was the leader and the woman
was his counterpart, a Co equal under the authority of her
husband. But that ideal became distorted
and broken when sin entered into their lives.
The woman was no longer content in her role and position, and
now her desire was to lead the home and to rule over her
husband. This created an ongoing and
damaging conflict between the husband and wife as the husband
may well be inclined to respond to the wife in an overly
domineering and ruling manner. The one flesh union they were
intended to experience that unity took a hit as the
relationship was fractured because of this power struggle
that they would now experience because of sin.
The sinful, rebellious behavior of both the husband and wife was
against their God-given roles in the marriage Next we look at the
ramifications of sin in the life of the man.
The curse as it relates to the man.
Here the man finally gets a name his name is Adam, which is just
as I've indicated a number of times in this series, means
human as the. As the focus shifts from this
specific to this specific man, we find that he was punished the
the ground was cursed. This was a cursed ground that he
would that he would now have to deal with as it says in verse
17. Now there would be pain involved
in fulfilling the command that was given to him to rule and
subdue the land. To make the land profitable and
productive. The process was much easier
before the fall and and the work the man was engaged in, it was
overly laborious. He would work and it was easy.
It wasn't like the way we think of work today.
But now, after the man's rebellion against God, the work
had become difficult and the ground was inclined towards
barrenness rather than towards productivity and plentiful.
Cultivating the ground would now involve hard work in order to
make it productive. Previously everything God made
was good, but now there were thorns and and thistles.
The land began actively working against the man to prevent him
in his task of of helping the land to be fruitful.
And verse 19 said By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread. So now the task of simply
putting food on the table has become increasingly complicated
as creation itself strives against humanity.
Romans 8 verses 20 through 22 says this of creation.
The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but
because of hymns who subjected it, in hope that the creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain
the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning
together in the pains of childbirth.
The man had been given the command to subdue the earth and
rule it in a godly manner. But now, because of the man's
sin, the entire created order fights back against his
rulership as it groans under the curse, and it longs for for
freedom. It's interesting that you and I
look at the world around us and we right we look outside, we, we
can see, we can see trees, we can see mountains and other
places. Or if you squint your eyes just
right, maybe the horizon looks like looks like mountains.
We can see the clouds, the sun, all sorts of ways to see God's
beauty. However, the reality is that
creation, what we see, isn't as God intended it.
We see instead a distortion of what God had originally created
and intended. Even creation itself longs for
the days when things will be made right.
Until then it groans as though as though it's giving birth to a
child, waiting for the expectant moment when the anticipated
Kingdom will be welcomed and creation returns back.
It's that garden like state. This is the curse on the
serpents, on the woman, and on the man.
But you see, there are there are blessings to be found in spite
of the curse. And first of all, the first
blessing we see is that humanity will survive.
Humanity will continue to survive.
In verse 20, the woman is finally given her name is Eve.
Why is she called Lee Eve? She's called Eve because she is
the mother of all living. God's original words in chapter
2 regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil, His
words were in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So they anticipated death, which was probably a factor in their
choosing to hide. Oh, we're supposed to die, so
let's go hide. But God wasn't about to renege
on the command to be fruitful and multiply these first humans
had they'd made an egregious error.
But God still had humanity on his heart, and he wanted the
plan to continue to move forward, all be it under much
different parameters. Sure, she would experience
painful labor, but that very labor was a reminder of the
promise of hope. She would now be instrumental in
fulfilling God's command and would live to bear children.
So if humanity didn't die at that moment, what did God mean
when he said they would die? Was he just bluffing?
Well, of death specifically in view here is spiritual death,
but physical death would also come to them.
But spiritual death is the severing of humanity's
relationship with the Holy Creator.
In their sinless state, these humans had a wonderfully
beautiful relationship with their God as they walked with
Him in the garden each day. However, a righteous, holy God
can't allow sin in His presence, so that relationship between He
and the humans was broken. They had no way to make things
right on their own. In fact, even their attempt at
covering their naked bodies wasn't good enough.
Verse 21 told us God made garments of skin for Adam and
Eve. If you stop and think, why did
he do that? Because they'd already made
themselves clothing of fig leaves.
Did their clothing not cover themselves well enough?
No, I don't think that was the problem.
But you see, something significant has just happened.
This was a historic moment and and leaves would no longer cut
it. Sin is serious business.
So an animal had to die to provide the skins that became
their This is a picture of the future in it foreshadows the
sacrificial system that that would ultimately come and and
the Lamb of God, the one who would die to cover our sins.
Now back to the second-half of the curse on the serpents.
Verse 15 is one of the most important passages in all of
Scripture. Verse 15 is prophetic in nature
and it tells us how how the war between the humans and Satan is
going to go. It reads, you'll see it there on
the screen. It reads, I will put enmity
between you and the woman. That is, I will make you
enemies, and between your offspring and her offspring, he
shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
The facts there will now be a rift between humanity and the
serpent's offspring has been laid out before the reader.
But that is not the end of the story, right?
In theological circles we call Genesis 3:15.
We call this the Proto Evangelion, the first Gospel.
The Gospel is good news and and the Proto Evangelion reveals 2
particular pieces of good news to us.
The first blessing that is revealed to us in the Proto
Evangelion is that it's a guarantee of Satan's
destruction. Satan is going to be destroyed.
The good news Nothing starts in the 1st century with the Gospels
and the writers of the New Testament.
No, the good news starts back here on page three of your
Bibles. The phrase he shall bruise your
head speaks to a significant blow, especially when we
consider what he immediately follows.
You shall bruise his heel. Here you refers to Satan and he
refers to the woman's offspring and the location of the blows to
indicate the severity of each. The humans strike to the
serpent's head is much more severe than this lowly serpents
striking the humans heel. Satan had desperately tried to
destroy the seed of the woman by causing Jesus to sin.
But Jesus overcame that temptation.
He was tempted, but he didn't give in.
So Hebrews 415 then declares we do not have a high priest who is
unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every
respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus is the high priest. He's the go between, between US
and the Father. Satan stands there accusing us
saying oh, they did this, they did this.
But Jesus is our legal counsel. He's the one he, he has gone
through what we went through and go through, but he didn't give
in. And because of his work, he
stands as our defense. So what is verse 15 actually
referring to? The offspring of the woman
suffered A bruised heel when Jesus died on the cross.
Death on a cross would be fatal for a normal person.
But Jesus isn't a normal person, right?
He delivered a fatal blow to the serpent Satan when he rose from
the grave conquering sin and death.
So his victory over Satan has been decisive and has purchased
the opportunity for each of us to experience that same victory
in the second part. The second blessing that we find
in the Provo Evan Gallery is the promise of the Savior.
It's the promise of a savior, Verse 15 told us.
The serpent and the woman had now become enemies.
It would be her house against the snake's house.
And to say that the woman's offspring bruises the head of
the serpent's offspring is to say that a savior is coming.
It's a declaration that things won't always be the way they are
right now, but in the end the serpent will lose.
Now I want to say make it clear this was not Plan B Sending
Jesus into the world wasn't Plan B.
God wasn't caught off guard by the situation with sin entering
into the world. Salvation for the human race was
planned and promised before Satan ever fell, before a single
sin had been committed, God planned for the salvation of
those who would seek him. Ephesians 1/4 tells us God chose
us in Jesus before the foundation of the world.
Second Timothy 19 says God saved us and called us to a holy
calling not because of our works, but because of His own
purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus.
Before the ages began, before time began, God granted life
through Jesus. God knew what was going to
happen before He even began the creative act.
He knew that He would create humans on Day 6 and that shortly
thereafter these humans would choose to redefine right and
wrong on their own terms. He knew that the Son would be
sent into the world to restore us back to a relationship with
the Father. So who is the Son?
Who is this Savior? While he's not like any other
human in all of history, sin had come into the world through
through one man. And because of that death, both
physical death and spiritual death spread to all people,
because all sin, and our sin means we deserve spiritual death
or separation from God. God's desire for our lives is
wholeness in a restored relationship with Him.
Satan's desire for our lives is destruction and brokenness.
He wants to destroy you. So now we live in the reality
that we can never and we'll never measure up to God's
standard. Romans 323 tells us that we all
fall short of His standard. What is God's standard?
God's standard is perfection, and none of us will ever come
close to that. We simply can't imagine that.
You're at the Grand Canyon, and the goal is to jump from one
side of the Grand Canyon all the way across to the other side.
Well, my family and I, we, we head out there, Louvian, because
she's vertically challenged, she attempts to jump.
We'll give her six feet. She makes it 6 feet across.
I can do better than that. So I jump.
I make it 10 feet. Micah enters the competition.
Oh, I'm light and really strong. I can jump 15 feet.
But did any of us? Sorry, I left out Arya.
Did any of us make it across? No.
We simply are unable to measure up to the standard.
We cannot measure up to God's standard.
We have a proclivity towards sin, but that's not the end of
the story. Not to state the obvious, but
Jesus died for us. He was the atonement.
He was the appeasement for our sin.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the animal that died for their
clothing essentially atoned for their sin.
It it made things right in a in a sort of sense, sin had
consequences and God would later implement a system that reminded
people that sin has a cost associated with it.
So Romans 623 tells us the consequences for our sin, and
that is death. But it also says that God's gift
to us through Jesus is eternal life.
So God showed us how much he loved us through the fact that
even though we're sinful people, he sent Jesus into the world to
die for us. We were at odds with God.
We we were enemies of gods. But God sent his son Jesus into
the world so that so that we could be saved through him.
In order for us to have that relationship with God restored,
we need only confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and
believe that God raised him from the dead.
The good news the gospels are writing about is that Jesus came
to bring us back to life to restore that relationship that
had been broken. Jesus was fully God and he was
fully man. He was born to a human mother
and he lived a sinless, perfect life.
He was falsely tried in illegal proceedings and then beaten and
hung on a cross to die the criminal's death.
But he didn't stay in that grave where he was buried.
On the third day he rose again from the grave, conquering
death, and 40 days later he ascended back into heaven, never
to die. His sacrifice was the payment
for our sin, and it's a free gift for all who believe.
Jesus came into this world to make right what sin had broken,
to bring wholeness to our lives. In order for us to have
wholeness that Jesus offers in a restored relationship with Him,
we only need the AB CS. A is for admit.
Admit that you are a Sinner. Admit that you cannot save
yourself. B is for belief.
Believe that Jesus is the one who who came into this world to
die for our sins and that God raised him from the dead.
It's important to say that this belief isn't something that is
simply intellectual. It's not just in our heads.
Even demons believe and and tremble is what scripture says.
But no, this belief stems from our hearts.
It's an expression of sincerity and and trust.
It's faith in Jesus Christ and what he has done.
And C is for confess. Confess Jesus as your Lord and
Savior. That means that as Lord, He has
authority over your life. Every single part of your life
is submitted and yielded to Him and His authority, and as
Savior, He is the one providing the way for you to have that
restored relationship with the Father.
Scripture tells us everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
will be saved. Quite probably one or two people
here this morning who who may not have a personal relationship
with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And if that's you, then all you need to do, if the Holy Spirit
is moving in your heart and prompting you to reach out to
Him, all you need to do is to admit you're a Sinner, believe
in Jesus Christ and what He has done, the work that He did on
the cross and His resurrection, confess Him as Lord and Savior.
And if you do that, then I'll say any prayer you might pray is
not magical in and of itself, but it's simply an expression of
what the Holy Spirit is already doing inside of your hearts.
So let's bow our heads and close our eyes this morning.
This morning, I want to give us a moment just to look in our
hearts, to examine ourselves. Have I placed my trust in Jesus?
And if you've not placed your trust in Jesus, then I want to
encourage you, if the words of this message are stirring in
your soul, stirring in your hearts to admit you're a Sinner,
believe in Jesus Christ and confess Him as Lord.
If you've already done that, then maybe consider for a
moment. Does my life reflect my position
in Christ? Am I living according to the
fact that I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
That God resides in me? Am I living according to that?
Let's just take a moment. God, we are so thankful for the
good news that the gospel. The gospel wasn't a Plan B.
The gospel was the plan from the beginning, before anything had
ever happened. You would set your hearts on
humanity to bring us back to