The Demise of the World

Thus far in the story, we've seen God's creation is good. It's created in an orderly manner. It's beautiful because it has the marks of God who is perfect all over it. We saw in Genesis 1, over and over again, the creation was good. It was good. It was very good. We saw how orderly and harmonious and beautiful creation was. It was full of God's wisdom. We saw in Genesis 2, God created man in a very intimate, personal way. He breathed life into him. And then God provided his every need. He provided all the trees in the garden, except one. All the trees in the garden that were good for food, that were pleasant to the eye. He provided man all the food he needed. He provided man the perfect paradise, the perfect garden in which he could enjoy life. And He provided a helper. When as we look at Genesis 1 and 2, we should look at what God declares there. And we should see that that's not the world we live in anymore, is it? We should see there's something that's gone wrong. There's something that's gone awful bad since this time. And we enter now that part of the story. And God enters this story. God tells us this story and interrupts it with a very clear contrast. Chapter two ends and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. They were there, innocent, in harmony, at peace with one another, at peace with God, in paradise. And then chapter three will enter a new character, a new character that thus far has not been described, has not been introduced. And his introduction makes it clear that a major transition is going to take place. Chapter 3, verse 1, Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Enter the shrewd deceiver. This changes the story. This changes everything about what's going to take place. If you look at Genesis 2, we talked about last week how Genesis 2 is really a double click of the mouse on day six. It's focusing in on how God made man special, unique, for a specific purpose. How God provided for him everything. And we really see Genesis 2, chapter 2, broken up into two scenes. Scene 1 is verses 5 through 17. And we see there God is the primary actor. God is the primary character in scene 1, as he gives man the most basic instructions for how he's going to live in the garden. Scene 2 is verses 18 through 25. Man exercises dominion that God has given him. And he names the animals. And then, of course, God steps in and he provides the wife. Well, scene 3 begins chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. This new character, the serpent, comes in. The shrewd deceiver. And we have to ask first, who is this serpent? As we ask that question, if we look at all of Scripture, I think it makes it clear that this is Satan himself. This is the devil. This is the arch nemesis of God. This is the one who is the original opposer and rebel against God. We look at Revelation 22. It talks about the great dragon, Satan, the serpent from ancient days. We ask, how did this serpent come here? Well, Scripture doesn't tell us that specifically. What we see is that the serpent is not supposed to be in the garden. The serpent is the one whom Adam was supposed to guard against in the garden. He was supposed to be keeping this evil one out. We can see some things about the serpent, about the Satan. Isaiah 14, 14 quotes Satan. saying, I will make myself like the Most High. Ezekiel 28, 12 through 15 describes Satan as once having all authority over all the angels. He was one of the hierarchy. He was on the top of the hierarchy of all the angels. But that wasn't good enough for him. He decided he wanted to not be the highest of angels. He wanted to be the highest of all beings. So he sought to overthrow God. And that is the original rebellion against God. And here he comes in to overthrow God's good creation on earth. Here he comes in to throw into chaos the way God had ordered his creation. We don't know when or how Satan rebelled against God, but we do clearly see that he is the original rebel who leads man into rebellion. The first thing we see here in scene one. Scene three, rather, sorry, scene one of chapter three, but this is scene three of the greater story is that the lie destroys God's orderly creation. The lie destroys God's orderly creation. The serpent comes in as this shrewd deceiver and he says to the woman. Now, notice it's interesting. Up until this point, your primary characters in Genesis 2, the history of man, the generations of the heavens and the earth, have been God and Adam. The woman has been provided for man so that he has a helper, so that it is very good now in creation. But it's interesting that Satan approaches the woman first. I think he does this intentionally because as we talked about last week, God has created an order to the relationships we're supposed to have as men and women, husband and wife. God created a proper relationship where the man has an authority, which again, we define as a responsibility over his wife, a responsibility for his wife. And Satan goes to the woman, I think already wanting to overthrow that good order. that God had created. He comes to the woman first to begin overthrowing the proper order of God's creation. Satan goes to the woman. Well, let me stop there for a second. Where's the man during this time? He's right next to her. It's just handing out the fruit. So Satan is tempting the woman. He's overthrown the order. Man should have been there to guard against this. Man should have stepped in. Adam should have said, no, Satan, stop your lying. Stop questioning my wife. He should have protected her. So, yes, the woman is the original one who is tempted and the original one who takes the fruit. But man, he does not keep his responsibility in protecting her. Let's look at how Satan tips her. Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Now, do you think Satan doesn't know what God said? He's clearly trying to seduce. He's clearly trying to create just that little bit of doubt in the woman's mind to make her doubt God's goodness. Did he say you can't eat of any tree? Well, of course, God didn't say that. He said you can eat of all the trees except for one. And he provided hundreds of trees that were good for food, that were pleasant to the eye. But here, Satan is starting to create that little bit of doubt concerning God's goodness. You see this in the woman's response, 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. Now, there's two subtle little changes that take place here. One, up until this point, God has always been referenced as the Lord God. Lord in all caps. L-O-R-D, all caps. That's how we transcribe the personal name Yahweh. This is God's personal name for his personal presence. Here, she leaves that out. It's just Elohim instead of Yahweh Elohim. I believe this is significant because when we do not, when we're sinning against God or we're doubting God or we want to question God, we don't like that personal, intimate God. We want a God who's distant. I believe this is what she's presenting here is that God is becoming less personal because she's not giving his personal name. And she adds this, you shall not touch it. God didn't say that. God said you cannot eat of that tree lest you die. See, what Satan is doing, and he's accomplishing already, he's trying to get her to doubt that God is good, that God has provided everything you need, that what God has done for you is good for you. It's great. It's gracious. It's merciful. He has provided everything you need. And instead of thinking about how God good is, he's starting to make her think maybe God's being harsh and repressive. Is God keeping something from me? Is what the woman begins to ask, because Satan has begun to put that question in her mind. Let's look further. Verse 4, But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, here we have two different statements. You will not certainly die. OK, there's a half truth here, isn't there? He's saying you will not certainly die. You might not die. That's a real possibility. And he's also pointing out the fact that I think it's there's two different deaths mentioned here. They don't physically die. They live to be 900 some years old. But what they do is they spiritually die, as we'll see. The more blatant sin, the more blatant lie is verse five. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan is really practicing a clever art of seduction here, isn't he? Notice he never says, take and eat it. What he does is he throws it out there and he talks about maybe how God is being repressive. And then he points out, look how good it is. Look how beautiful it is. Look what it can offer you. God is being harsh. God is trying to keep something good from you. It's an amazing strategy of attack. He begins to make you question God and then he begins to make her doubt God and His goodness. Then he begins to lay out something for her to desire. You can become like God. You can know good and evil. This is a direct lie. She will know good and evil, but she will not be like God. She cannot handle the authority. She is not created to have the authority to know good and evil. She does not have the authority to determine what is right and wrong, as we discussed last week. As she questions God's goodness, as she questions God's authority, Satan lays out there for you, this is something you can take. This is something God is keeping from you. This is what you can have. Verse six, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a light to the eyes and that the tree was good, 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. Now, again, notice there's three things that the three ways the tree is described. It's good for food. It's the light to the eyes and it's to be desired for wisdom. Well, the first two, there's hundreds of trees in the garden that provide that. It's this one tree that will provide a certain kind of wisdom. The focus here is that this tree is going to make you wise. This tree is going to give you the authority to say, I did it my way. This tree is going to give you the authority to be an absolute dominion instead of a vice regent of the garden. If you take this fruit, you can overthrow the ruler of all creation and you can do it your way. You can have the wisdom that God is trying to restrict from you. And it's harshness. Notice what happens in verse seven, whenever Eve takes the fruit, she gives it to Adam. They both eat of it. Now, first of all, what do you think they're expecting to happen? You know, they would both get capes and have superpowers. What do you think they're expecting to happen? They would have a great ability to be omniscient and omnipowerful and be able to create their own kingdoms. What were they expecting? A greater authority than they already had? Obviously, they hadn't thought this through well, because, well, regardless of what they were expecting, verse 7 shows that they were very disappointed. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Now, what is it about this tree that caused them to see that they were naked and now they're going to be ashamed. Was it a magical fruit? No, I don't think it's some kind of magical snow white fruit. I believe what's taking place is God has given them a clear command. And once they rebel against God, once they break that clear command, their hearts, which God created good, which God created to be in harmony with His will, which God created to find rest in Him alone, their hearts, instead of being bent towards God, bend upon themselves. Their hearts turn perverse. Their hearts turn selfish. Their hearts, which were created to glorify God and worship Him and see all of creation as His beautiful design, they now see it in their own selfishness. They now see all of creation according to their perversity. They now see each other without clothes and they don't see God's beautiful design and God's beautiful world. Now they see each other in their selfishness and their perversion. See, what dies on that day is their innocence. What dies on that day is their good heart that was created by God to worship him. Shame and guilt is the fruit of their actions. while they were looking to have their eyes open to be able to know all and do all, maybe. No, what happens is their eyes are opened and they realize they've made the biggest mistake of all humanity. They realize they've broken God's good created order in the garden. Now, if you think about this, let's, before moving on to the next scene, there's a couple of key strategies that we can think about for our own spiritual battle. First of all, we are always being bombarded with lies. Either through the culture, through commercials, through entertainment, through one another, through our own deceptive hearts. We are always being bombarded with lies. And what we must do in order to fight these lies is know God's Word. Spiritual warfare begins with God's Word. Spiritual warfare begins with knowing exactly who God is and what He said. You see, Adam and Eve should have realized that these lies that were coming off the tongue of Satan, they should have heard them and realized that they did not line up with everything they'd experienced thus far. They didn't line up with His goodness, with His provision, with His care. He was so good to them in giving them all they needed. And yet one little lie, one little twist of the truth calls them to doubt, calls them to rebel. Friends, we are susceptible to the lie. We shouldn't think that we are beyond this lie. It's easy for us to look back and say, Adam, how did you do this? We must realize that we're in much worse shape. We've got lies coming out of small directions. And your only defense, your only hope is to know God's word and be able to attack those lies with God's truth. So as we are bombarded with lies, we must focus on who God is and what he said. Particularly, let me think about a certain kind of lie. And this is a lie that's a half truth. I believe one of the greatest lies that Satan is trying to always tempt the church and Christians to believe is that you are guilty before God. One of the greatest lies, one of the easiest lies to tempt you with is that you are guilty before God because what Satan is going to do is he's going to point out your real sin. He's going to show you and he's going to manifest to you your real sin. That's not the lie part. We're all sinners and we all should be guilty before God. What Satan is going to do is he's going to say, you send yourself out of God's love. That's the lie. You've sinned beyond God's power and authority to forgive. He's going to say, look at your sin. There's no way you can be a true child of God. That's the most dangerous lie we can believe as Christians. You know, you battle that. You take that lie, you take that accusation, and you lay it before the cross. And you have to ask yourself, am I going to believe the man who has lied throughout his entire life? Am I going to believe that God, in the power of His Word, created all that is? And the power of His Word died for my sins and said, I am forgiven. Which one are you going to believe? Friends, you will be hamstrung as a Christian. You'll be destroyed if your assurance isn't clear in the cross of Christ, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you're tempted to believe that your sins are too great for Christ, too great for the cross, take them there and ask Jesus Christ, is your word sufficient? Do you have the authority to forgive me or does Satan have the authority to accuse me? Well, I think that the answer will always be clear. Christ's word is the greatest word. Christ's word can be trusted. And if you have a hard time, friends, taking that accusation to the cross by yourself, the church is there to help you do it. Scene four. Chapter 3, verses 8 through 13. The confrontation. The confrontation demonstrates that man is deceptive like the serpent. Now, notice what man does. He makes a loincloth. Now, everything that just happens to him because he rebelled against God, it was internal. His heart died. His right standing before God died. His innocence died. He's now perverse. He's selfish. And what does he do? He tries to fix it with an external loincloth. He tries to hide his shame and his guilt. And then when God comes, walking in the cool of the day, or which could be interpreted or translated, walking in the wind of the day. Wind is oftentimes a metaphor for God's presence. As in the Holy Spirit, the wind of God. What does man do? He hides from them. This is somewhat humorous, right? Here's God who created all the world, created this special garden, gave man one rule that wasn't harsh, and man is going to try to cover up his shame. And when God comes breathing through, he hides from them. God asks a rhetorical question, where are you? I don't think this is an inquiry of place. This is an invitation. Come out. God says, where are you? And man says, and he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Notice here, Adam was afraid of God. This God who breathed life into him. This God who created everything for him. Who provided for him. Now all of a sudden, in his shame, in his guilt, in his rebellion, he's afraid of God. He was once friends with God in the garden. But now he's confessing, whenever I heard you coming, I was afraid. Do you think he was expecting that? When did he expect to become like God? What a horrible loss of everything good. What a horrible loss of everything God provided for him. Now he's afraid of God. And notice that God gives an invitation, come out. And Adam has become like the serpent in the fact that he doesn't come out and say, forgive me, I have sinned against you. I think he's hiding it. I was afraid because I realized I'm naked. I realized I've got shame. Well, God doesn't let him keep up with this charade. I don't believe God lets him keep up with this avoiding the real issue. Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? God confronts him head on with the real problem. You have rebelled. You have taken that which I said you should not take. You have done the one thing. The one thing. The one thing in all the garden you could not do. You did it. Notice man's response. That's a good opportunity for man to say, I'm sorry, right? That's a good opportunity for man to say, I was wrong. Man says. The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate." Some beautiful blame shifting here. Anyone who has children who are older or, well, was once rebellious children yourselves, we know how this plays out. We try to figure out a way to shift the real burden of shame and guilt off of ourselves. We try to figure out a way that the circumstances of life are the real problem. It's not my fault. It's what happened to me. So the man, he begins to answer God. It's amazing that he's afraid of God, but he's also trying to trick God. The woman who you gave to be with me. Notice he's not just blaming the woman here. Who's he blaming? He's blaming God. This woman that you gave me. It's not my fault. She handed me the fruit. Then the Lord said to the woman, what is it that you have done? And she said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. At least she gives much more of an honest answer. But again, there's a bit of, I was deceived by the serpent. It wasn't, I didn't trust you. I didn't believe you. I send." There's a blame shifting that takes place. Now, if you look at this, this is an interesting just test case for how the heart gets twisted and corrupted so quickly. You see, in this rebellion, the heart that God made good, the heart's condition that God made innocent and pure, it's become perverse. And one of the great consequences of our perversity is self-deception. We are self-deceived. We all like to think of ourselves much greater than we really are. We like to pretend that we're not as bad as other people so that we can build up our own self-righteousness and think, I've got it together. Friends, instead of admitting our sin, we try to find circumstances. or reasons that are out of our control that cause us to sin. This, Adam, is our father, not the sense that he just simply modeled lying and believing a lie and finding fault outside of himself. He's the father of us in the sense that he gave us our depravity. We are perverse like him because he is our father who represented us in the garden. Well, we must realize that this self-deception is gross. This self-deception is destructive. This self-deception is not helpful for our spiritual growth in helping us love God and love one another. Many people have asked why I have preached through 1 John the need for transparency. One of the things I want this church to be known for is transparency in sin. I want this church to have such a courage in the gospel of Jesus Christ that we're not afraid to talk about sin. Well, I want us to have such a courage in God's word that confronts our sin. We're not afraid to talk about it. And the reason we need to talk about it is because we're like Adam. We will deceive ourselves. We will try to figure out reasons why we sin that are not simply saying, I rebelled against you. We need other brothers and sisters to come alongside of us because it's easy to deceive ourselves when it's just ourselves in the room with God. Now, we need brothers and sisters to come alongside of us. and help point out the sin, help protect us from the self-deception. That's why God created us for one another as a church. That's why God's command for us is to watch over one another, to care for one another, to confront one another, to love one another in the gospel. We must realize that the most dangerous thing against our own spiritual well-being The most dangerous weapon against our own spiritual well-being is our self-deception. Without a confronter, without someone who's going to point God's truth to you and point to you how you can obey it and repent, you'll remain in self-deception. It's like a warm blanket that keeps you cozy at night. It'll kill you. It'll destroy you. So, friends, this is why we need one another. We need to depend upon the Spirit to convict us, to illuminate us. We need to depend upon the Spirit and other brothers and sisters to do the same. Scene five. The curse. The curse that confuses the beauty and order of God's creation. This is a poetic section. There's a great rhythm here as God declares the curse. And there's there's three figures. There's the serpent, there's a woman and there's a man. Let's first look at the serpent. The Lord God said to the serpent, verse 14, because you have done this, cursed 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, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head. And you shall bruise his heel." Now, first, the curse is against the serpent. And it appears as if the animal, the serpent that Satan chose to manifest himself through, he's cursed. And he's cursed to go on his belly. He's cursed to eat dust. And, well, anybody knows a snake doesn't actually eat dust. But what this is a metaphor of is humility. is being conquered. He's going to eat dust because God is going to humiliate him and conquer him. And that becomes most specific and most vivid in the focus of the curse. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is the first proclamation of the gospel and scripture. This is a beautiful promise to us in the midst of the curse against Satan, because what God is saying here is that there will be a seed of a woman who will conquer you and your seed. Well, it'll have a temporary defeat of him. The seed of Satan isn't a lot of snakes. Now, the seed of Satan is what we described him from first John. It's the world. It's the world, as John described it, it's the world, it's all people who have joined in a fight against God. It's the world, it's all people and all things that are opposed to God and submitting to His proper rule. So as you look at this, we have to ask, that's the seat of Satan, but then there's the seat of woman. And notice that in the second part of verse 15, it's singular. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Now, to properly understand this, there's a great seed theology in Scripture. That's why we have all those genealogies. We may look at the genealogies and we think, OK, these are the ones that are just going to kind of breeze through. And they're not the most exciting part of Scripture, but they're essential to understanding what's taking place. Because here, God promises that through the woman, a child will be born and he will conquer our greatest enemy represented by the serpent. Our greatest enemy is sin and death. God promises that a seed, a child will be born. And so every time a new child is born in the lineage, there's hope. Is this going to be the one? Is this the one that's going to return us to the garden? Is this the one that's going to return us to God's privileged position as we want to walk and talk with Him in His perfect care? And as you look after genealogy, after genealogy, after genealogy through Genesis, and then throughout the whole Old Testament, what you continue to see is that each child failed. Failure after failure. The promise continues to look forward. And Israel has to start wondering, when will God fulfill this promise? When will God bring about that child who will crush the head of Satan and will conquer sin and death? Well, friends, we get to look back. And we get to look how and see how God fulfilled this promise. This promise, this seed of a woman who will crush the head of Satan, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You see, Adam was the head of the original human race. He was the representative of us all in the garden. He doubted God's goodness. He doubted God's love. He doubted God's power. That's why he failed. When tempted by Satan, he believed the lie. And so, Jesus Christ is sent by God. God's own Son. Fully God and fully man. Conceived in the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, so that He would be like us in every way, except for sin. He would be born innocent. so that He could stand as a new head of the new humanity. He would stand as a new representative for all who believe in Him. He would live a life that obeys God's Word. He would live a life that manifests God's love. He would live a life that leads others to trust in God's good promises, in God's good instructions. You see, Jesus Christ, the seed of woman, He's ahead of a new race. He's ahead of a new humanity. He lived a perfectly obedient life in contrast to the old Adam. To the old humanity. And in His perfect obedience, He was obedient even to the cross. Even to death on the cross. So what He accomplished for us is that by dying for us as an innocent man, He's able to take God's wrath away from our sin. He takes our wrath as an innocent man in the power of God and destroys it. He destroys our greatest enemy, sin and death, so that Paul can say, oh, sin, where is your sting? Oh, death, where is your victory? And by taking our wrath upon his innocence, he then gives us his new life. He rose victorious from the grave, showing that He has conquered sin and death, showing that He has conquered Satan and the chaos that He introduced into God's good order. Yes, Satan had a temporary defeat. He bruised his heel by when Christ died on the cross, but it was a temporary defeat. The eternal defeat, the eternal victory, rather, is Christ. Friends, as we look at Jesus Christ, As we look at Adam, we must realize that if we do not confess faith in Christ, we are still under his sin. We are still in his depravity. We are still under his curse. We are still under his damnation. It's Jesus Christ who gives new hope and new life for us to believe in. The second person who receives a confrontation and a curse is the woman, verse 16. 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. Now, there's two specific curses here. There's two specific consequences to her sin. The wife was created to be the helpmate of the husband, to be able to actually share in God's creative nature by being able to participate in procreation, to have children. The woman was blessed with the opportunity to have children, to bear children. And now that great blessing she had comes with difficulty. First of all, most generally speaking, we can say that all women have pain and childbearing. But I'll be speaking to more than this. I believe this pain and childbearing is not just speaking to the physical pain that all women suffer while having a child. But it's also speaking to the difficulty and having children, period. This is speaking to the difficulty of miscarriages, this is speaking to the difficulty of infertility. It's very interesting that here God gives the woman this consequence of her sin, you will have pain and childbearing. And as we look ahead to Genesis 12. God promises to Avram and Sarah that they will have a child. Well, they are experiencing the full consequences of Eve's sin. Avraam and Sarah don't have children. They're getting up in age. The curse is well and alive in Avraam. And God continues to say, I promise you, you will have a child. And what He's doing there is making a clear declaration that I am reversing the curse in Avraam, And Sarah, this promised child, which would be Isaac, this promised child is going to begin the reverse of the curse. Friends, we look at that, we can see that God is good in the midst of this curse. We can see that in the midst of the difficulty of having children, having miscarriages. God is faithful and good to us. God's promise overcomes the curse with his great blessing. Let me speak more specifically to those families who have experienced infertility and miscarriages. The first thing I think you need to hear is that it's not your personal fault. If you are wrestling with infertility or if you have miscarriages, the first thing I think you need to hear is that it is not God's personal wrath or judgment against you. that has caused this infertility or this miscarriage. Friends, what you have to know is that God loves you. Friends, if you're a believer, you cannot question God's goodness to you because you're wrestling with infertility or a miscarriage. It was nothing that you have done. It's not your personal sin. It's not anything that you have done wrong against God that brought this on. It's the curse. And I hate that you have to suffer greatly in the midst of that curse. But God is not judging you in some special way. The temptation is to wonder, what have I done wrong? Friend, it's not what you have done wrong. It's the greater curse that we're all under. I do not know why you have to suffer more than others. I wish I had an answer as to why God causes all suffering. But what I do know from God's good word is that if you are a child of his and you believe in him. He loves you dearly. He cares for you dearly. He will comfort you. We must do is persevere and not curse God. We must persevere in trusting that even in the midst of the curse, even in the worst, most physically and emotionally difficult consequences of the curse. We can trust God and His goodness to care for us, to comfort us and to love us. The second major consequence that God gives to the woman is really for both man and woman. The second part of verse 16, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. The first thing here is that we have to define this word desire. Does it mean she's going to physically desire him, emotionally desire him? Well, those would be kind of odd, wouldn't they? God created her to be his helpmate. It would be odd for a good desire to be part of the curse. No, the way to define what this desire is to look over to Genesis 4, chapter 4, verse 7. When God tells Cain, sin is crouching at your door, it desires you. Its desire is for you. Now, what kind of desire would sin have for Cain? It's to destroy him. The desire here is the same exact word, and it's a rare word in the Old Testament. And I believe we're going to interpret Genesis 3 correctly. We've got to interpret it based upon how this word is used in Genesis 4. The woman's desire is to overthrow. Adam now. You see, she was created to submit to him. She was created to be a helper. She was created to be a helpmate. But now the role order is all messed up because of the chaos Satan has introduced, because of the rebellion of man. And now the woman is tempted to overthrow or undermine her husband's authority. And then the man, well, he's tempted to rule over her. And this doesn't mean the authority that we talked about last week was being responsible for his wife. It's referring to an iron-fisted responsibility. It's referring to an iron-fisted leadership, rather. You see, the roles of man and woman have been completely corrupted and turned upside down because of our selfish, perverse hearts. Because of our depth in the garden. What we have to realize is that this is our state of being. We are tempted men to rule our wives with an iron fist, or maybe some of us are tempted to let our wives undermine us and become a sheepish couch potato. What we see here is a clear destruction of God's good role order. Let me speak to the women here first. One of the clearest commands in Scripture for you, in the New Testament especially, is to respect and to submit to your husband. Let's start with that command to submit. First, I want to point out something to you. Every time Scripture says submit, it says to your own husband. It's very emphatic. It's very clear what Scripture is doing there. What Scripture is saying is that you don't have to submit to any other man. It's a protection clause in many ways. It's a command to submit. to your husbands, but it's a protection clause that says you don't have to submit to any other man in the church. You submit to your husband. He is your head. No other man has the authority to tell you what to do. But it does say submit. It says follow. Most importantly, let's focus upon this admonition to respect your husbands. See, that's clearly a confrontation against what God says is a woman's natural tendency now, and that is to overthrow and undermine the husband's leadership. You are to respect your husband, not overthrow him or undermine him. So what does it mean to respect your husband? Well, first of all, it doesn't mean you encourage his sin. It doesn't mean you're going to encourage him in his stupidity or in his sin. I love the fact that my wife corrects me. I love the fact that my wife is a spiritual challenger and an encourager to me by pointing out when I'm not actually being wise. There's a certain way in which a woman does this well. There's a certain way in which a woman does this harshly. You can respect him by encouraging him to lead. You can respect him by telling him the great gifts and talents he has as a leader. You can respect him by showing him grace when he fails, when he steps out in faith or when he steps out and trying to lead you. Be armed with grace wise to care for your husband. He's going to be criticized in the world. He's going to have plenty of people questioning his ability, his talents, his character outside of the home. Let him come home and have a safe harbor where he is built up and encouraged and respected. One of the most fascinating passages referring to women is 1 Peter 3, where Peter is encouraging women. He actually says, submit to your own husbands. And then he says, like Sarah. And he says that her beauty was in her submission. All right, let's think back. Sarah was so physically attractive that at 90 years old Avram lied about her because he was afraid she was going to be taken in to the Egyptians court. She's so physically attractive Avram has to lie about her. But here scripture points out what her true beauty was. What her real beauty was. It was in her submission to her husband. That's what made her gorgeous and beautiful. to Abraham. We live in a culture that focuses on all the physical, more physical beauty than any other culture that I've ever read about or know about. Women, you can be tempted to focus on this physical beauty, to focus to be on your physical beauty, focusing on how you can submit and respect your husband. That's what will make you attractive and beautiful to him. Men, your responsibility in this is to watch over your wife. We've already seen Adam fail miserably at this. He did not care for his wife. He did not protect her from Satan. Realize that your wife is a temple. She is a garden of God, and she is yours to tend. She is yours to care for. She is yours to provide for. She is yours to take care of. to lead in all godliness. If you want a beautiful wife, care for her in a way that she will become a beautiful wife. It's funny, I've discipled college students ever since I was a college student. And the kind of things a single guy wants in a wife is usually pretty astounding. You know, they want the perfect Proverbs 31 woman as she is right there before he'll commit. Proverbs 31 woman isn't created in a vacuum. If you want the perfect wife, you have to marry her and cultivate her. If you want the perfect wife, you have to lead her into godliness and care for her and provide for her. Now, this is the model of discipleship that I hope I presented once before, but let me do it here. Women, it is... Your job to help your man see when he's being completely sinful. But make sure you're doing this respectfully. When my ideal world, my naive ideal of the church, is that the men are so caring for the other men, the men are discipling other men, that your husband is being confronted and cared for in his sin by other men. And then he's able to come home, be respected by you in the way he loves you. and leads you. Women are watching over other women. Women are helping other women understand how to be better helpmates and better parents and better godly wives. This is the model set forth in Scripture. Men disciple men. Women disciple women. Men lead the home and the wife respects her husband. And then these families, well, they exercise good and right and perfect religion, and they care for the widow and the orphan. The church is supposed to be all caring for one another. The church is supposed to be a body that is loving one another, that is holding one another accountable. And each role relationship has its proper function. This is going to be a matter of time and energy and hard work and labor to really exercise this care for one another. Finally, let's look at the man and his curse. It's interesting that all of the curses that come upon man, beginning in verse 17, they're all external. Man was supposed to lead the creation in worship. He was supposed to be the maestro leading them into worship. He was supposed to be the vice regent caring for the garden. And when man falls, well, the garden goes with him. The garden was supposed to provide for his every need. The garden was supposed to be yielding to him. But here we're going to see that all of creation fell without him, and that's why it yearns or groans, as Paul says in Romans 8. Verse 17, 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 it you were taken, for you were dust, and to dust you shall return. What amazing judgmental language. Here's a God who formed man out of dust, breathed life into him, and now He's saying, you're going to have to labor in this dust, and the dust is going to consume you. You are going to go back to being dust. The promise was true. He will die. Is this harsh? No, it's just. God is holy. God is the sovereign ruler. God gave him one instruction and he couldn't keep it. God in his perfect holiness has every right to exercise his wrath against God. It's only by God's mercy that we have any hope in that promise in Genesis 3 15. Well, friends, we talked about how work shouldn't be considered a gift from God last week, but let me reiterate. Something that is rampant, well I know in this church even, but in our culture, is a desire to be idle and lazy. There's a desire to be idle and lazy. To find a job that's going to be fun and relaxing. The curse doesn't allow that. It's a pipe dream. It's you trying to avoid the curse. It's you not living obediently, persevering under the curse. Now, fight idleness. Idleness and laziness are sinful and rebellion against how God has called us to work. Just because the work's harder doesn't mean we stop working. Quickly, I will finish with scene six, the new life, verses 20 through 24. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. I believe this is actually Adam exercising faith. He's saying, I will call you Eve, the mother of all living. I believe because he thinks that the promise that she will bear a son who will conquer sin and death is true. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothes them. He created better coverings for their shame, but notice an innocent life had to die in order for them to be covered from their shame. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the woman has become like well, the man has become like one of us and knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also 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. He drove off a man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the chair and a flaming sword and turn every way to guard the way to the tree of life. We were supposed to guard the garden. We were supposed to be in the garden, guarding it from evil. Now look at us. We're cast out of the garden and the garden is guarded against us. We and our rebellion have separated ourselves from God. Our sin is offensive to God's holiness. Our sin is offensive to the holy, righteous, beautiful God who created us to be in his presence. We're separated now. Life isn't the way it's supposed to be. Life is intentionally frustrating because God wants us to always be reminded that this isn't the life we were created for. Life isn't easy. Life isn't fun. Life is difficult because we're under a curse and that curse is to remind us this isn't the life we were created for. But praise be to God that the great separation that we cause ourselves in our sin, He has sought to destroy. The separation that threw us out of the garden. Jesus Christ Himself has ended. He destroyed that. And now we can believe in Jesus Christ and be reunited with the God who created us and who loves us. Let's pray. Almighty God, we thank you, Lord, for your word that gives us good instruction. We thank you, Lord, for your word that speaks clearly to our most difficult tragedies, our most difficult experiences. Thank you, Lord, for a word that helps us understand where we have come from and what has gone wrong. And thank you, Lord, for a word that gives us instruction, gives us a promise that you are correcting it. You, Almighty God, have not left us hopeless and under Your wrath. You have given us good hope in Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to follow Him and believe in Him. In Him I pray. Amen.