Man and Sin

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem and travel all around Israel. And this is pretty exciting because when you do this, you really just see ruins. And they all kind of come, they all look the same after a while, but you go from place to place and city to city all over and you hear about what used to be there and you kind of see maybe a cornerstone, an outline, but you're just looking at ruins the whole time. But people pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time to do this because there's something glorious about those ruins. What used to be there. What used to happen. You know, the structures that used to be churches that are now ruins, they had a glory to them because there was a design and you can see it and you can appreciate the beauty that once was when it was properly erect and properly built before it was destroyed. If we actually looked around all of creation with eyes to see, I think we would see all of this earth is a glorious ruin. That's actually, I think, the best description I've ever heard for where we are in God's plan today, a glorious ruin. You see, it's glorious because God's fingerprint is still in this earth. It's still in this creation. It has order and goodness, life and beauty. But it's also been ruined. There's murder, rape, war, divorce, disease, death. It's a glorious ruin. It's glorious because God's fingerprint is still upon it and we can see how good it was. We can see the design and what it was meant to be. But we also see the ruin. I believe this is why Christianity makes the most sense of this world because this is why we love this place and hate it. We love it because we can see the glory and the goodness. We hate how evil Men are. Humanity. We have to realize when we ask the question, why is the glory ruined? What has brought the ruin into the glory's creation? First, it's not God's fault. We have to stop there. It's not God's fault. God gave man the most ability, the most power, the most influence over his creation, and what we chose to do was to spread our ruin instead of spreading his goodness. We rejected his word to spread his goodness throughout all of creation, and instead what we did was we brought our sin to spread like a disease. That's why it just isn't the way it's supposed to be, and we know it. The creation has a ruin about it. And we, as human beings, we're a glorious ruin. We're glorious because God created us with the power to praise Him, and to worship Him, to serve Him, to know Him, to love Him, to know His love. But we've been ruined because we've decided to reject all of that. The good news today is that God is about the business of renewing us, of bringing us back into the glory, to allowing us to see his glory. The sad truth is that whilst we were seeking to gain what was out of our reach, we lost everything God put into our hands. We're studying Genesis 3 today. And the simple message is while we were seeking to gain what was out of our reach, and we'll explain that, We lost everything God put into our hands. We rejected his word and believed a lie. Now, we're in Genesis 3. If you're new with us, if you don't have a Bible, please take that Bible in front of you. We're on page 3, so it should be easy to find, Genesis 3. We're on page 2 and 3 of that Bible. And I want us to see something that if you look at chapter 2, verse 4, It begins, these are the generations. If you flip over to chapter five, this is the book of the generations. We could actually go, and these are the sections of Genesis. Genesis 2-4 through 4-26, that's one section. It's supposed to be read together because it's showing us how good things were. That's the glory. Chapter three and four, why it's so ruined. It's because we rejected God. So last week we were in chapters 1 and 2. It's the praise of God's creation. It's the praise of how He's ordered everything and made it good. Today we're going to look at why it is no longer good. The repetition last week. Genesis 1. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's very good. God rest it. This week we see how we reject it as good. If we look at the end of chapter two, man and woman were there both naked and not ashamed. That's a great declaration, but we now know that they're going to realize that they're naked. They're going to have shame. It's startling. If you're here with us last week, man goes from praising God for his wife to blaming God for his wife. That's two and three. They go from not realizing or from being righteous before God and having no shame to realizing they're sinners and exposed and they're running high. It's a sad turn of events. So last week we talked about God and man, how he created us to be. This week we're talking about man and sin, what we did. Next week we'll focus specifically and especially on God and sin, how he has resolved our problem finally. But today we have to focus on sin. There's four points that I'm going to try to make from this text. A one word follow, just follow an outline. Deceit, that's verses one to seven. Deceit. Confrontation, that's eight to 13. Confrontation. 14 to 24 is judgment. Judgment. Then God makes provision. God makes provision. So, deceit, confrontation, judgment, provision. Hear the word of the Lord. Genesis chapter 3. 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? 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, and that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. 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. You will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, 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. And the eyes of both 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 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. 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 the 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. 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. 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 of 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 are taken, for you are 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 skin and clothed them. 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 the tree of the life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man. In the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and the flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Let's first look at the deceit. And really a longer title here is we corrupt God's good order when we embrace the law. We see here we've had God, we've had Adam, we've had Eve, and now we get a new character. It's a serpent. The first verse of the new scene, it's a new character. It's the serpent, and he's crafty. Now, God made this one. We know from the rest of Scripture that this is Satan. Satan is created by God, not evil. He was created good, and there was a fall before the one we're gonna talk about. There was a rebellion that took place in the heavens before this rebellion on the earth. And we see here that this creature, he has limitations and restrictions just like every other creature. We also realize man is made lower than the angels. He's powerful. As an angel, he has power. He's a very powerful angel. It says here he's crafty. He's clever with words. He knows how to say things to make you think what he's thinking without telling you to think it. It's trickery. He works the angles. And really, one of the things that stands out is he speaks. This section is a dialogue. It's all about who's speaking, right? He said, he said, he said. Well, the serpent, he approaches Eve. He says to the woman. Now, we can just stop right here because remember the creation order. God was not created. He created man, and then out of man He created woman. There's an order in creation. I believe already by approaching the woman first, Satan is trying to undermine the order that God has brought to creation. And one of the things he wants to make sure he pushes is, did God actually set? The reason the saying, who says what in this passage is so important, God's word is the one that's authoritative and trustworthy. Satan is trying to undermine God's word and God's character by making his creation, his creatures, question what he says. Did God actually say, did he really say that? Can you really trust that word? Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Now, what's he poking at there? How would a good God say something like that? Could you trust a God who would not let you eat anything in this beautiful garden? Did he actually say that? Well, thankfully, the woman, she responds. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. So she corrects him. No, he didn't say all the trees. But God did say, this one tree, you can't eat it and you can't touch it. Now, what's interesting about this is, I think this is also why Satan goes to Eve. God didn't tell Eve that command. That command came to Adam before Eve was created. So she actually gets it wrong. God didn't say you can't touch it. He just said you can't eat it. Now, Adam's there with her. We see that in verse 6. It's Adam's job at this point to say, Eve, no, he said you can't eat it. You misquoted God. God's Word is authoritative for us. We have to trust Him. He's good. No, we need to stay away from this guy. He's causing us to question God's word, and we're already misquoting it. Let's go to God and listen to him. That's Adam's responsibility at this time. But instead, he's sitting there as a silent participant in what Satan is doing to Eve. She responds. She gets it wrong. Verse four, the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. Certainly not. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. And you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Surely not. God said that? He's keeping you from something good. Why would God be so harsh not to let you eat of this tree that's going to open your eyes, you'll be like God, you'll know good and evil. This is an inappropriate restriction. Surely God would not do that. See, Satan is plucking away. He's undermining. He's making them ask, is God good? Is God, in what he said, is it right? Now verse six ends, so when the woman saw the tree was good for food, so it's pleasant to the eye, it was a light to the eyes, it was pleasant to the eye, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. The emphasis there is a desire to be wise. What they fail to realize that we know from Scripture is that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and what they have decided not to do is fear the Lord. They're desiring to be wise and they're seeking to get wisdom from a source that's going to make them foolish. Because wisdom starts with worship. Fearing God, having reverence for him and his word. They're forsaking wisdom, seeking wisdom. They sought to be wise. She took of its fruit. She ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who is with her, and he ate. Again, Adam's watching. He's a silent participant. He's supposed to be providing for her, protecting her, saying, let's go, we need to talk to God because this is not the way it's supposed to be. Look at verse seven. Something that Satan said was right. Their eyes would be opened. The problem is they did not like what they saw. The eyes of both were opened, and then they knew they were naked. And then they tried to hide their shame. You see, seeking to get what they could not have, they gave up that righteous innocence that God had put in their hands. They're trying to get something that's out of their reach. to be like God, to determine right and wrong for themselves. That's not what they're created for. They can't have that ever. And in trying to get it, they lost everything. They were under the care, provision, protection, and command of God, they were blessed. They threw it off. So now they're cursed, destroyed, shameful, confused, and they will die. Now just a quick summary. God gave a very specific command. There's one command in Genesis 2. Don't eat of one tree. God had given them all the trees they could ever desire, and he says simply do not eat one tree to remind them you're not autonomous. I decide good and evil. I am the God who declares what is right. God gave one command, and Satan comes to undermine it. God has given his word in a statement, in a declaration, and Satan wants them to question it. God has given them all they could ever want or need, and Satan says, shouldn't you want something more? Folks, one of the things we should clearly see is that we have to be a people of God's Word. We have to trust God's Word. We have to constantly be pointing each other back to God's Word. It is His source of life. It is how He seeks to exercise His authority over us. It is how He seeks to care for us, provide for us, correct us, protect us. It's good. It's sufficient. So when someone's questioning is God's word sufficient, they're saying what Satan is asking. Has he really said? The reality of spiritual warfare should frighten us. Because Satan attacks, it's always deceptive and it's always destructive. Again, he's more powerful. He is more clever, he is more crafty. He is a foe who destroys us and we're helpless on our own. But God, but God has given his word. His word is what he has given to us so that we can fight the one who seeks to deceive us. It's a pattern throughout scripture. To battle Satan effectively is to know his word, to trust it, and to hold fast to it. So two basic application points. When confronted with temptation, battle with God's Word. Take His Word, trust it. Take His Word, believe it. Take His Word and know it's sufficient. Take His Word and go to battle against that temptation knowing that what God says is good and that evil desire you have is bad. Crush that evil desire with the truth of God's Word. Believe it is true, even though your feelings and your desires are taking you away from it. Secondly, when confronted with condemnation, battle it with God's word. Satan's goal is to do two things, and they work in a cycle. To tempt you to sin, and then to tempt you to think there's no hope for you, you're condemned, you're defeated. He wants to defeat you and then step on you while you're defeated. Tempt to sin, condemn and sin. That's Satan's pattern. And he gets you in that washing machine and you just can't get out. The way you get out is you trust his word, what God has said. Hold fast to his word, hold fast to Christ. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because by His death, we are free from guilt. By His blood, we have been washed of our sin. By His life, we've been given new life. We know this because God has said it. We don't know it because we always feel that way, do we? No, we know it because God said it. So we must trust His words. The second thing we see in this passage, there's the deceit, there's the temptation, there's the fall, there's the confrontation. Look at verse eight. Now, when they heard the sound of the Lord God, I can't wait until I know what that sounded like. That's one of the questions in Scripture, that just, what does it sound like for God to walk? He doesn't have a body. I think what the pastor is actually getting at here is the man and God's relationship was so close, he knew when God was coming. It happened at the same time of day. He recognized a friend when he's coming. The difference is that every time God came into the garden to meet with man because he loved man and wanted to have a relationship with man, that's what he created us for. Every time before this, man welcomed it. But this time, it was met with terror. He was afraid. And then, man does what man does when he sins. He does something stupid. Something I want you to hear very loudly. I realize stupid isn't a word we use in a lot of homes, but this is true. Sin makes you stupid. All right. It really is supposed to be humorously, humorously, a humorous sad scene here. All right, God is the master gardener. He created this garden. He formed every tree. He put it in its place. He knows every leaf, every fruit, every piece of bark. He knows the garden. He knows where everything is in the garden. He knows what's happening in the garden. And man tries to hide behind a tree in the garden. That's foolish. Sin makes you do stupid things. And honestly, it's not just that he's trying to hide behind a tree of the garden of the master gardener. He's trying to hide his sin. God doesn't let that happen. So he comes in the garden. Man and woman, they're wanting to remove themselves, hide themselves from the presence of God, so they hide behind a tree. And the Lord God calls to him, where are you? God's not looking for information here. This is supposed to be a self-reflecting question. Man, I need you to think, Adam, I need you to think about where you are and where you're supposed to be. I've come into this garden day after day, and we've met, and we've walked around the garden, and we've talked about the good order of the garden, and you are supposed to be together right now. Where are you? hiding behind a tree, afraid, because you have forsaken my word. Adam answers, verse 10. 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 this? Who told you you were naked? So let's first back up. Adam's answer, I heard you coming. And I knew that I wasn't right anymore. I knew I was no longer innocent, and so I was afraid, so I hid myself. What Adam is expressing here and experiencing is shame. Shame is painful. We avoid it at all cost. But shame, by God's good design, is good for us. Shame is good. It's painful and good. Let me try to make the analogy. Whenever we have an infection in our body, God has designed this body to hurt. When a foreign substance is attacking your body, it gets red, it gets irritated, There's pain. And this tells you, you need to go get medicine. You need to go get something that's going to take away this foreign substance from your body that's not supposed to be there, that's going to cause more pain and maybe death. Your bodies are designed wonderfully like that. So is your conscience. Shame is the way that God says, there's a foreign substance. You need to go get help. Shame is God's way of saying there's a foreign substance attacking your spirit, attacking your heart, attacking your conscience. Go get the balm of Jesus Christ that will wash you, that will heal you, that will make you whole again. Adam isn't trying to get healing for his shame. He's trying to hide it. He doesn't know what it's good for yet. We should know what it's good for by now. Shame takes us to God to find grace. Don't hide it. Don't try to hide from God. So God's confrontation, verse 11. Have you eaten of the tree that I command you not to eat? What is this you've done? God isn't asking a lot of abstract questions here. I gave you one command. Did you break that command? It's concrete, it's clear, it's simple. Have you eaten what I have said not to eat? Look at what man says. The woman whom you gave to me, she gave me the fruit of night. Now if you were with us last week, Genesis 2 has a climactic ending where finally Adam says this at last. Woman, she's here, praise God, thank you, I now have a helper fit for me. Thank you God in Genesis 2, Genesis 3, The woman you gave to me, she's the problem. This is pathetic. This is pathetic. He's taking God's good gift and he's throwing it back at him. This is pathetic. He's refusing to take responsibility for his actions. This is just good old deflection. So verse 13. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? She follows her husband's lead. Let's see if we can get the attention somewhere else. The woman says, the serpent deceived me and I. We look at Adam and Eve in the story, and we can say, all right, this is kind of embarrassing to watch. But this is what we do. We need to be careful not to be so quick to say this is ridiculous. It's actually presented somewhat to make us realize how ridiculous sin is and how stupid it makes us. But we need to be quick to not judge too quickly here because this is us. We hide our sins. We have excuses for our sins. We blame others for our sins. We believe the lie that the safest thing to do is to hide our sin, hide our shame, because we don't want to go through the pain of actually dealing with it. We don't want people to think less of us. And what it does is it keeps us from actually getting the healing we need. You realize that when you hide your sin, it's like inviting a serial killer to come live in your home with you. When you hide your sin, you are saying, I'm going to protect that which is seeking to kill me. When we hide our sin, we are hiding our enemy within us so that it can kill us. What we need to do, when we have shame, when we have sin, is find a faithful brother or sister who can help uncover and undo the knot that has twisted our love and confused us. Find someone who can help us recognize how the grace of Christ will overcome this sin, give us hope in that grace, and help us untie the knot. Let me give you something I've realized recently. A lot of folks, when they're in sin, they look for accountability. When you're in sin, accountability isn't actually going to help your sin. You need discipleship. You need untied. When you only want accountability, you're saying, don't touch the knot, just try to keep it from getting tighter. No, somebody needs to come in and help untie it. Then you can look for accountability to try to keep it from getting tied up again. Accountability does not solve a sin problem. It just keeps you from going back into sin. A scary place that you might be today is that sin has become so normal you're numb to it. If you don't know the feeling of shame, is it because you've quenched the Spirit so many times you are listening to your sin so loudly you don't hear it? That's scary, folks. As Christians, we sin and the Holy Spirit convicts us and it brings us to shame and repentance. That's what God has intended. that when we sin, he gets us out of it. And the first thing is to be pricked, to be convicted. Children, I want you to learn something from this story. Don't lie when you sin. First, don't sin. But we sin. When you sin, when you're caught, don't lie about it. Because what that does is it creates this weird web of deception and even self-deception that tries to cover up your sin, and it's only making it worse. So children, when you fail, do not cover up your sin. Do not lie about your sin. Take responsibility and receive discipline. That's good for you. You can take what I just said to the children and apply it to yourselves. Don't teach your children to make excuses for sin. We all have excuses for not doing what we're supposed to do. We all have excuses for doing what we're not supposed to do. Do not teach your children to sin by making excuses. Third, judgment. This is verses 14 to 24. Notice there's three sections. The Lord God said to the serpent, verse 14. He said to the woman, verse 16. He said to Adam, verse 17. God created man and then woman. Satan decided to attack woman then through man, or to attack God by first coming to woman and then man. God first approaches Satan, then woman, then man. He addresses everybody according to their order in Genesis 3. So first he addresses the serpent. He addresses Satan. First we see here that the serpent has a physical curse. You will eat dust. You will go on your belly. You're cursed among all the livestock. But verse 15 is really one of the most important verses in all Scripture. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. This is important because it shows us that because of our failure, because of our sin, because of our rebellion, and because of Satan, we are in a battle. Are you aware of that this morning? There's a battle going on right now And we believe the lie that this world's a playground when really it's a battlefield. So here's the scary thing. If you're playing all the time, you're defeated in the battle. If you're about playing, you're not fighting, you're defeated. Because of our rebellion, because of Satan, there's a battle going on. It's an ongoing battle. And if we were left to our own strength, we would surely lose. But, let's look at the second half of verse 15. There will be one son, one offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is the first declaration of the gospel in scripture. Notice how quickly it comes after our sin. This passage is fulfilled when Christ dies. See, Christ is that one son of Eve that's been promised. The promise came to Abraham, and then to Isaac, and then to Jacob, then to Judah, Jesse, David, That's why that genealogy in the gospel is so important. We know that Jesus is of the right line. He comes from the right line to be this one offspring. In the bruising of the hill, that's Christ on the cross. He was defeated, supposedly, on the cross. But really what happened on the cross was Christ was victorious. Death was defeated by the death of Christ. When Christ died on the cross for sinners, Our death was taken away from us and put on him, and death was defeated because he rose in victory. Christ is the victor that we get to believe in so that we can be forgiven of our sin, we can be free from the power of Satan, we can be free from the power of sin. God has done good works to undo the ruin that we've brought about. I want us to see something else here. God said to Adam, don't eat of this one tree. And Adam said, I'm going to reject what you have said. And in response to Adam rejecting what God said, God said, I'm going to save you from rejecting what I said. In response to us rejecting God's word, God said, I'm going to send a son, he's going to be my only son, he's gonna walk among you. In response to us rejecting what God said, he declared his son would come down to us knowing what we would do to him. We beat him, we spat upon him, we mocked him, we nailed him to a cross, we killed him. God's Word, in response to our rejection of His Word, was to say, I'm going to save you. In response to us rejecting God's Word, He said, I'm going to send my Son, and I know it's going to cost me, because I'm going to have to pour out all my wrath upon my beloved Son, who's righteous, so that I will never pour it upon you who believe in Him. This is the power of God's Word. We reject His Word, and so He promises to save us. This is the power of God's Word. This is why we must be a people of God's Word. It saves us, it corrects us, it directs us. He won the battle because of what He promised after we broke His command. Verse 16. To the woman, he said, I will multiply your pain and childbearing, and pain you shall bring forth children. So here, one of the great blessings, one of the great commandments of Genesis 1 is to fill the earth, the creation mandate. Fill the earth. Now that great blessing that we had to be able to procreate, to have life among us, is made difficult. And women, let me make it clear that I don't think this just means that when you're actually giving birth, it's painful. There's going to be pain in trying to have children. This is referring to the barren womb, the miscarriage, the pain and suffering in birth. What is actually amazing about God's Word is that in the midst of this judgment, this curse, we can actually think about what God's done with the womb. His first promise for a promised child comes to a family that has a barren womb. Sarah can't have children. He shows he's sovereign over sin and the consequences of sin by bringing a child, the first promised child, Isaac, to a barren womb. And just think about how he promises the last promised child, a virgin. He's sovereign over the womb. The next thing is, well, one of the most controversial passages in our modern day church. Woman, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. To get to the point fairly quickly here, we need to figure out what does it mean, what does the word desire mean, and what does the word rule mean? Well, one of the first keys you want to do is, is there a way that this word is used in the context to help us define what these words mean? And praise God, he does that. Look at chapter four. When he speaks to Cain, who's very angry, the Lord God says to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you. But you must rule over it. So we gotta ask, what does it mean for the word desire in both these contexts? What does rule mean in both these contexts? What it appears to be is that God is saying that this beautiful designed marriage between husband and wife is going to have conflict now. You were praising God for wife, you blamed God for wife, now there's gonna be inner conflict and turmoil. And the woman is going to have a desire to undermine her husband. To not respect him. We could go to Ephesians. I'd love to, but because of lack of time, we won't go there specifically, but in Ephesians and in Peter, the women are commanded to submit to their husbands and to respect their husbands. That's the opposite of the desire for the husband. The woman's desire is to undermine, not respect. The curse is pinpointing the one problem in marriage is the consequence of fall, there's no longer unity. So the tendency among women is now to disrespect their husbands. So women, be aware of that. Be aware that you've been given the grace to respect your husbands. That's what God has commanded you. God knows what they need, what we need. Secondly, husbands will rule over his wife. Rule is used in chapter four for sin. Sin's an enemy. We crush enemies. When God commands rule over sin, it's an enemy and we're gonna go all out attack and we're gonna destroy it. We're gonna conquer it, we're gonna kill it. Men, your wife is not your enemy. You're not conquering. You're not crushing. She's your gift from God. She's of the one flesh. She's to be loved, cared for, provided for. You rule over an enemy and you crush that enemy. You love and sacrifice for your wife. But because of our sin, our tendency is going to think of them as our enemy or our slave. That's not what God provided her for. And you will have to give an account for how you love her. In conclusion, the right relationship between man and woman that God designed has been corrupted. She's become a nag and he's become a jerk. That's the two sinful tendencies. We don't actually need to go to Scripture to actually see that that's true. It just helps us realize why that's the way we are. A lot of folks will say, submit to him? That dude? Love her? Are you kidding me? You know what we're doing right there? Excuses. You know how God, we like to give qualifiers. I will submit if. I will love if. When God gives us commands in Ephesians, he already adds a qualifier. It says, women, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. That's the qualifier. You don't get to add qualifiers. God's qualified. Submit to the Lord as, submit to your husband as to the Lord. Husbands, you don't get to qualify for when you'll love your wife. or how you love your wife. It's already been qualified for you. Love her as Christ loved the church. You're going to pour yourself out for her. You're supposed to give her everything she needs, no matter what it costs you. We make excuses. God calls us to action. Finally, he says to the man, Adam, he said, because you listened to the voice of your wife, you have not listened to me, you have not trusted what I commanded you, you are cursed, the ground you came from is cursed, your work will be difficult, and from dust you came, dust you shall return, you will die. Man's life is frustrated now. But God does not leave us without hope. Notice our last section, provision. We have hope because of God's promise. The man called the wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. She's the first woman, the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed animals. God covers their sin for them. See, if he'd gone to God, God would help them. What they needed was covering, and I want you to see that in order for their sin to be covered, innocent life died. Where does the skin come from? An animal. Did that animal do anything to deserve to die? No. The animal died to cover the sin. Man sought to flee God's restriction, God graciously covers the shame, and in every sacrifice that Israel does throughout the Old Testament, it is reflecting back to this, but it does not fulfill it, because there's one sacrifice that finally fulfills the innocent life that is slaughtered to take away our sin. And notice I said take away. Christ's sacrifice is different and better. It's the perfect. righteous life. That was crushed. Not to cover our sin. Not to cover it. To take it away. To wash it away. It's not covered. It's clean. This is the beautiful balm of the gospel. It washes away our sin. What we have to do is actually trust the power of the gospel. Does God do what He says He will do? He forgives you. Trust His forgiveness. Finally, the other provision is He casts God out of the garden. This is an odd provision, but our sin in the midst of God's holiness, that doesn't work out well for us. Because we'll be consumed by His wrath. And so God removes us. And the whole of the rest of Scripture is God saying, I'm going to bring you back. But He's gonna take time. He's going to send His Son. He will reconcile us. What we have to see here is that our sin brings about a consequence, and the consequence feels like discipline, but that discipline is good. It's good. because God in his time is going to bring us back. Friends, when we reject God's word, we're believing we're gonna gain something that God didn't mean for us to have and we cannot have, and we lose everything. This is the trick of Satan. God can't be good if he restricts you. We're trying for autonomy, but what God says, what I have for you is good. My word for you is good. The wife I've given you is good. The job I've given you is good. What I've given you, it's good. Trust me. I will take care of my children. And we know He takes care of us because even when we reject His word, He gives His word to save us. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise You and we thank You that You are the one true good God. You've spoken, you've spoken clearly. We've clearly rejected you. Help us to see our sin so that we can come to you, find the balm and the healing that we need from Christ so that we can enjoy that restored relationship with you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.