Genesis 3:16-19: Curse of Man
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To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but 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 it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Prayer:
Catechism Question: What is God?
God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal; and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
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It is a great grace and blessing to unite with believers to hear from our God in community.
We must not take for granted this time.
Every aspect of our service is put forth to encourage, refresh, strengthen, and equip us for the work God has for us.
The time we now spend in God’s Word is so that we can know God, hear from God, and rightly think about God.
One of the greatest difficulties that a Christian will experience is to rightly know God.
The reason for its difficulty is that we often come to God with all sorts of wrong understandings and incorrect knowledge.
We are prone to make God in our own image, in our own likeness, instead of recognizing that God makes us in His image.
We are prone to misunderstand God as we seek to use our own beliefs systems and our own standard instead of God’s.
We are prone to think we can put God on the stand and judge His actions instead of recognizing that He is the King and we are his servants.
As our song says, we need God, because we are prone to wonder, we are prone to leave the God we love.
Thus, by the power of His Spirit according to the purposes of His plan, He gives us this time to draw near and to listen.
This grace is much needed due to the curse that we will read about today.
Our life is a constant burden,
our relationships are a constant struggle,
our body is in constant deterioration, all because of sin and rebellion.
And before we are quick to blame Adam and Eve, so as to remove the blame from ourselves, we can look in the mirror and see we are no better.
If anything we are much worse.
But to the believer, there is great hope in the great pain and sorrow.
What we discovered last week is this:
Even in the midst of God’s just judgement, His loving kindness is extended in His rescue plan.
Thus, we have hope in a hopeless place. We have encouragement in the midst discouragement.
Yet, what a different picture is painted by the atheists and unbelievers.
This group has no hope and no way to cope with their belief system.
They have gone against the truth declared in order to believe that this cursed state is normal.
The pain, suffering, sorrow, guilt, and shame of sin is just how it always was and always will be.
This, in their worldview is to be expected.
Every time they attempt to make things better it fails.
Every time they try to reverse the effects of the fall it fails.
What we discover is that there is no amount of self-help, no amount of inventions, no amount of government, that can make things better.
To the atheist, this is because of how it always was and always will be.
To the atheist, it is just find ways to cope until you die and then that is it.
No wonder we have such a mental health Crisis in our day!
But, to the believer. We have a very different understanding, and a very different reality,
Because ours is based off the truth that the One who created everyone and everything gives us.
As the world continues to try to figure out the cure, we as Christians, already have the cure.
We have the Gospel. The Good News of Jesus Christ.
Last week we saw the very first Gospel.
That even in the midst of rebellion, in the midst of the curse, in the midst of chaos, we see hope.
We are given an antidote for the disease of sin that has spread to everyone and affected every thing.
One may think that God is cruel and awful for bringing forth a just judgement on His Creation.
But, God is absolutely right and good to bring forth this judgement.
You’ve heard me say this before, if God were to just forgive us, He would be merciful, sure, but he would not be just.
He would have to sacrifice one attribute for another.
Yet, God not only provided just judgement, he also provided amazing grace.
I like how Richard Phillips puts it in regards to God’s sentence to humanity:
God injects a poison into the life of sinful humanity. His purpose is not ultimately to slay us, however. God has made himself the only antidote to the poison of these curses, so that mankind escapes the curse of death only by a return to our Maker in true faith and love.
I appreciated Mr Phillips acknowledgement of the Sovereignty of God and His freedom to do His will with His Creation,
But, I also appreciated the point that God’s character displays His rescue plan as well.
We see both God’s justice and God’s love.
Neither are abandoned, neither are sacrificed, and God is glorified in both.
Thus, last week we saw the curse on the serpent and we also saw the hope in the first Gospel.
Now, When it comes to bringing forth the curse, God goes in reverse order.
For the blame, he started with Adam, then to Eve, then to the serpent.
Reminding us who is ultimately responsible. Adam first, then Eve, then the Serpent.
With the curse and the punishment, he goes to the serpent first, then to Eve and will finish with Adam.
Last week we looked at the serpent, and today we look to the punishment of Eve and Adam.
Let’s now look together at Genesis Chapter 3 verse 16 and let us seek to discover the purpose and hope behind these curses.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
In our first curse to the woman, we see 2 areas of life that were given for joy and satisfaction, now bring forth pain and frustration, Childbirth and Marriage.
One important note is to see that these are not commandments to be obeyed.
God is not telling us what we are to do now,
But rather, God is giving declarations of how life will be now.
This will be our reality from this moment until the return of Jesus.
No amount of science, or discovery, or even godliness will reverse the effects of this curse.
Even our redemption in Christ here on earth will not reverse this curse.
Our redemption gives us an eternal hope that will end the curse,
But we are still engaged with the curse until that day.
Yet, this curse is also for our good, as a reminder that God has given us His Son, the only solution, and the only reprieve.
The curse, while bringing forth justice, also brings forth salvation.
This is a monumental statement that we must grasp hold of this week if we are going to be encouraged.
The curse, while bringing forth justice, also brings forth salvation.
We will certainly get to the good news, but for now, let us look specifically at the curse.
God begins by taking one of the greatest blessings and adds great pain to the results.
Illustration: I must begin by admitting defeat from the onset. As a man, I do not know intimately the pain and difficulty of child birth.
I know when I get a cold, for 3 days, that in my mind it is equivalent to 9 months of being pregnant.
I’ve also rammed my pinky toe on the side of the table, and this too, makes me think I might be getting close.
But, while I have not experienced the pain of childbirth first hand, I did have the opportunity to be in the room where it happened.
With Nolan, our 6 year old, we did a home birth.
No medicine, no epidural, nothing. Just an all natural birth from start to finish.
Teasing aside: There is beauty in pain, there is blessing in agony.
Pregnancy is a very difficult endeavor and for much of human history even deadly.
In reading about the Puritans and many of the great theologians of the past, this was a common yet painful ordeal.
Many would lose their children in the 7 or 8 years of life due to sickness and disease.
Several had wives who passed away from child bearing.
While it is rare and uncommon today, it was an understood way of life just a hundred or more years ago.
What is supposed to be a joy, a celebration, a triumph, is filled with worry, fear, and sorrows.
Even today, women attempts to erase the realities of the curse, only serve to numb the effects, but never abolish them.
Our attempt to lessen the pain only serves to remind us that the pain is real.
The very reason for an epidural in pregnancy is because this curse is in effect.
The pain in childbirth would be a continual reminder of sin throughout every generation and would point to...
and be a continual reminder of, our only hope and comfort found in the accomplished work of Jesus.
Yet, this curse does not stop with birth pains, it continues with marital relationships.
My wife and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday by attending a Spring Training baseball game.
My Tiger’s got destroyed 22-10 by the Yankees. (It felt more like a Tball game than a Major league game)
Thankfully this is Spring Training because I almost excommunicated Gerry and Donna Kingston over this.
But, the point is not my awful Tigers and whether or not they have been cursed.
My point is that my wife and I celebrated our anniversary, and on our drive back I tried to share something romantic.
I said, you know, over the years, our marriage has been rough and difficult, but it is worth it.
Here, I thought that was sweet, but apparently that was only sweet in my mind, because it resulted in revealing the next part of our curse.
That women will be quarrelsome with their husbands for the rest of humanity until Christ returns!
Ok, I am joking about the comment, but the reality is that there will always be tension in our relationship.
Probably more so after making this joke.
Let us look closer at this verse and unpack it: Speaking to the Woman, God says:
“Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
First, we must try to understand what is meant by “Your desire shall be contrary.”
We see that this is directed towards relationships and specifically marriage which is only between a man and a woman.
We can see this exact same wording being used next chapter with Cain and Abel. (Speaking to Cain God says)
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 contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
Here we see that same phrasing “Desire is contrary to” let’s look back at our verse.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
It would thus be understood that this desire is a “seeking to exercise a dominating control.”
Sin’s desire with Cain was to have dominating control in his life and he must fight against that.
In the curse, Eve has a desire to exercise a dominating control over her husband.
As the curse continues to every generation, women continue to exercise dominating control over their husbands.
Derek Kidner says, “To love and to cherish, becomes To desire and to dominate.”
Which, she will now have to do the same as Cain and fight against it this desire.
The man is thus told, through this curse, that he shall rule over her, thus the battle of the sexes began in the garden.
Now, this is incredibly strong language and one that is culturally repulsive in our day.
Our culture today takes the sin that is supposed to point us to Jesus and instead flaunts it.
Instead of fighting the desire, instead of submitting to Christ, it is better to celebrate the desire.
Which is what society tends to do with all sins.
Society demands acceptance and jubilee instead of repentance and submission.
Susan Foh explains:
The words mark the beginning of the battle of the sexes. As a result of the fall, man no longer rules easily; he must fight for his headship. Sin has corrupted both the willing submission of the wife and the loving headship of the husband. The woman’s desire is to control her husband, to usurp his divinely appointed headship, and he must master her, if he can. So the rule of love founded in paradise is replaced by struggle, tyranny, and domination.
So, what do we do?
Well remember, this is the declaration of the curse and what is to happen and what will be happening.
As long as we have relationships we will have conflict. As long as we have marriage we will have this fight.
But, again, even the struggle in our marriages of conflict and dominance and headship and leadership,
God does not abandon us to endure this curse alone, but provides us His Son, and His Spirit.
God tells us that we must look to Him for the solution to our conflict instead of try to do it ourselves.
If you want peace and unity and joy back in your marriage, and you are trying to do it apart from God’s plan and purpose,
You will continue to fail and you will continue to be frustrated.
We see through the power of the Spirit, how marriages are supposed to be.
In looking back to the fall, Ephesians 5 reminds us of how this relationship is supposed to be in light of Christ.
Women are not to dominate, they are to submit.
This does not mean that they are not equal. Men and women are equal but men and women have different roles.
This is God’s plan.
This may not be your plan, and according to the curse, will not be your plan.
This may not be cultures plan, but according to the curse, we wouldn’t expect culture to follow Christ.
But, this is God’s plan.
Men are then told to rule over their wives, and the first way of doing so is by laying down their lives for their wives.
The ruling is not for the sake of dominance but for the sake of sacrifice.
To provide, to protect, to lift up, to guide, to be a wall that every attack in this world breaks upon.
To love them like we love ourselves.
Our example to accomplish this is by looking to the example of Christ and the Church.
The answer is not in us, we are never the answer to the curse, the answer is Jesus.
Women are thus to submit to their husbands in the way they submit to the Lord.
Men are to lay down their lives for their wives like Jesus laid down his life for the church.
Woman are supposed to submit to their husbands in the same way they submit to Christ’s Lordship in their lives.
But, before women believe that everything is on their shoulders and have to bear this curse, God turns next to Adam.
Genesis 3:17 (ESV)
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,’
Genesis 3:17–18 (ESV)
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 are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
First we see that this curse is a result of Adam’s failure to lead his wife.
It is because Adam did not do the very thing that husbands are called to do
That we got into this mess in the first place.
I suggested the first sin was not Eve eating, but Adam not leading, which lead to the eating.
Genesis 3:17 (ESV)
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,’
Adam abandoned his rule and instead of leading he was passive and let the woman fall on his watch.
Adam, who was approached first by God, shows that Adam is ultimately the one responsible for this sin of Eve.
Though Eve will not escape the curse or the blame, Adam is the one who ultimately failed.
This is a result of Adam’s failure of male headship. Adam submitted to His wife.
Men, we are to physically and spiritually care for and lead our wives. That is our biblical mandate.
When we fail to do this we are doing the very thing that brought sin into the world in the first place.
We continue to do the very same sin that Adam committed back in the Garden.
Because Adam did not lead His wife, then his wife will continue to try to dominate him.
But, in addition to this, not only will His wife try to dominate him, but so will the ground.
Genesis 3:17–18 (ESV)
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.
The ground in which man is to provide from will not yield its fullness but will rebel against him.
Our exhaustion comes from everything that we are supposed to lead, fights us every step of the way.
Doing manual labor will not bring forth full joy but will be difficult and will be exhausting.
Not only will it be difficult but it will also be painful as thorns and thistles will attack while walking and working.
Illustration:
As we have continued to work on our property we have been moving fences around for our cow and donkey to be able to forage.
One it saves money, and two it helps clear out our land, so it is a win/win.
Well it would be if our land didn’t fight back.
Coty has a huge bruise on her knee and I have a long gash on my arm.
I ran into these 3 inch spikes of death that were on this tree.
I felt like I was in a scene from Avatar because this couldn’t be real, why do we have 3 inch spikes coming out of trees!
While we were trying to figure out where to move the next part of the fence Chloe, Dylan, and Nolan were playing in the pen with our animals and said they climbed this tree and were eating plants like monkeys.
At first I thought that was cute and fun, until a red flag flew up in my head.
What plant where you eating? They said a green leafy plant.
I said, there are no green leafy plants because because Rosey and Willow ate all of the green leafy plants.
Well not these green leafy plants, they left them alone.
I said, If they wouldn’t eat them, then there is probably a very good reason why you shouldn’t eat them.
So I took my camera and had them show me the plant and sure enough, poisonous and toxic to humans and animals.
Depending on the amount, even deadly.
Come to find out, the Seminole Indians would crush this plant into a seasoning and spread it on meat and leave it for their enemies to find, so that when they ate it, they would die.
And this plant is growing in my yard, and my monkey/kids are eating it!
EVERYTHING IS TRYING TO KILL US!
Luckily they didn’t swallow any and were just pretending and they are fine.
But, this is part of the effects of the fall.
Science will want to tell you this is all part of evolution, but this is all part of the curse.
Paul shares this reality in Romans.
Romans 8:20 (ESV)
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it,
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
The pain extends beyond us to the whole world, and it is because of sin that God put forth this curse.
It is because of this reality that Adam, and future generations, now struggle to provide for their families.
Let’s go to our next verse.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Work is supposed to be fulfilling and life-giving.
But often times work causes back breaking exhaustion.
We are constantly frustrated in our endeavors and nothing ever comes easy.
This is going to be our life and this life, while still filled with joys and blessings, are also filled with difficulty and curse.
All of this toil and strife leads us not to fulfillment but where does all of our work eventually lead us? To the grave.
Because of sin we will all die and we will all be returned to the ground.
Adam was created from the ground and Adam and all of His offspring will return to the ground.
This coming Saturday and the following Tuesday I will see this very strong reminder as we lay my Dad in his grave and see my mentor and friend John be put in his final resting place.
This, while a cause for celebration because their race is complete, their struggle over, and the curse on earth ended,
It Is still difficult for those of us who are left behind.
However, we still have the joy of knowing they are with their Savior and the only relief from the curse is in Christ.
The curse of death is inevitable because of sin.
But, and hear this if you checked out, just when the curse was given the curse breaker was declared.
The curses were brought forth but there is still something beautiful in the midst of the tragedy.
Children would still be born even in the midst of great pain and agony.
Food would still be harvested in amidst the sweat and toil.
Marriages would still flourish even in their difficulty.
The ground would still be tilled even with the scrapes and cuts of thorns.
All of these aspects were brought forth by God, but not to destroy us, but to bring us back to Him.
Every frustration, every difficulty, every scrape, every fight, every pain, is meant to remind us of sin and point us to the defeater of sin.
What is truly remarkable and truly mind blowing, is that the Father would send His Son into the curse.
To feel the weight of the curse.
To, get this, even become cursed, in order to break the curse.
In one of the most humiliating and harmful moments of Jesus’s life, he took the very curse upon His head when a crown of thorns were pressed upon his skull.
The very thorns that would come forth to cause us frustration, were used to mock, humiliate, and ultimately murder Jesus.
The result of the curse would now be placed upon Jesus and He would hang on a cross.
RC Sproul explains this concept:
When on the cross, not only was the Father’s justice satisfied by the atoning work of the Son, but in bearing our sins the Lamb of God removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He did it by being cursed. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” He who is the incarnation of the glory of God became the very incarnation of the divine curse.
RC Is speaking of Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
The curse from the fall, the curse of the law, the curse of the cross, all of it placed upon Jesus to become a cruse for us.
The Sin of you and I, will be put upon Christ.
Jesus will take our sin, and receive the punishment of the curse, so that we can have a path to escape the curse.
What separates us from God / Christ Jesus reunites to God.
When we look at our first parents, when we look to our current parents, when we look to ourselves, we see the same failure, the same rebellion, the same sins.
We see the same curse today that Adam and Eve both saw.
We see that we can try to do anything and everything to fix the curse.
We take pain killers, we go to counseling, we manufacture factories and build machines,
We try to do whatever we can to erase the curse, but what we discover is that the best we can do is numb it.
The curse is still there and it will never go away and we will fight it until we become dust again.
Our only hope, our only rescue, our only redemption, comes from the God-man, Jesus Christ.
The one who gave the curse, is the only hope to defeat the curse, and defeat it He did.
Our sin reminds us of the one who did not sin.
Our curse reminds us of who became a curse.
Our failure reminds us of who conquered.
Even the very thorns are an illustration of what Jesus accomplished on our behalf.
Everything points us back to Jesus. (Pause)
One of my final conversations with John, sitting on the wall at the abortion clinic, was pondering heaven.
I asked my Brother, what is the one thing he is most looking forward to after meeting His Savior.
John’s answer shocked me. I’ve never heard anyone say it like he did.
His answer. I’m looking forward to never sinning again.
Why this shocked me is that we often think of being rid of the pains of sin, while forgetting that it was sin that put us there.
John’s anticipation was not looking forward to being away from the results of the curse, but what caused the curse.
John was not dreaming of being rid of the pain, but being rid of what caused the pain.
John now has this wish granted for him.
As do all of our friends, family, and loved ones who have put their faith and trust in Jesus.
John is now finally and fully free from this curse, and fully free from what caused the curse.
Until we too finish this race, we cannot defeat the curse, but we can let it point us to the one who did.
His name is Jesus, may all of our hope, trust, and faith, be placed upon Him.
Amen? Let us pray.