Sin's Consequences - Genesis 3:8-24

Copyright Dec. 2, 2018 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche

"But we aren't hurting anyone." These are the words that excuse many things that are wrong and sinful. The words just are not true. Many of the choices we make in life have a ripple effect we do not see when we make the choice. Certainly, that was never truer than the decision made by Adam and Eve.

There are many who look at the story of Adam and Eve as an allegory; a story designed to give us a picture of mankind's gradual change. Others see it as a myth, a story that isn't true but designed to teach religious truth. Human beings go to great extremes to sidestep responsibility for sin. There is nothing that suggests allegory or anything mythological. The naturalist, the person who dismisses the supernatural, is the one who tries hardest to make the account something other than history.

If we believe in God, if you believe in the Devil, then this account should not be any problem to you. More importantly, the rest of the Bible points to this passage as history.

Hosea 6:7- But like Adam, you broke my covenant and betrayed my trust.

2 Corinthians 11:3 - But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent.

1 Timothy 2:14 - And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result.

Romans 5:12 (and following)

12When Adam sinned, sin entered the world

In Matthew 19 Jesus referred to God's Word to Adam and Eve about marriage in arguing for the permanence of marriage for us. If this account is not true, then there some problems with these other texts.

Last week Rick looked at the temptation of Adam and Eve and the problem of evil. This week we look at the second half of the story and see the consequences of sin.

Satan attacked the truth of God (you will not die) and appealed to the ambition of man (you will be like God). Eve trusted her feelings (the fruit was appealing) instead of God's instructions and ate of the fruit. The ripple effect of this one act is still being felt today.

Disruption in Fellowship with God

After Adam and Eve sinned by doing what God expressly told them not to do, the first thing they did was hid from God.

8When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

11“Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”

Adam and Eve had a special, intimate, and personal relationship with God. It is the very same relationship we look forward to when sin is abolished, and the Lord is seated on His rightful throne and we are with Him in our eternal home. God was present. He talked directly to them. And that most precious of relationships was the first thing effected by sin.

God is Holy and as such does not, in any way, compromise with evil. Sin creates a barrier between us and God. We see this in the way Adam and Eve hid themselves. In a sense, they could no longer face Him. God could have washed His hands of the couple right here, but he didn't. Even in their sin God cared for Adam and Eve. He did not wait until the morning, to let them stew a little, He came to them in the evening to address the sin immediately.

It is important to understand what God meant when he said, "the day you eat of it you will surely die." It can, on the surface, appear God was not telling the truth. Adam lived to be many centuries old. However, Adam and Eve did die immediately in terms of their spiritual life, or their connection to God. We define life as living and breathing here on earth. That is a short-sighted view of life. John said, "He who has the son has life, he who does not have the son does not have life." (1 John 5:11,12) Jesus Himself said,

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. (John 11:25-26)

Consequently, I believe even though Adam and Eve did not immediately die physically, they did die spiritually.

Relational Consequences

12The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

13Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”

“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”

As soon as Adam and Eve were confronted with their sin, the first thing they did was try to find someone else to blame. Adam blamed Eve (and kind of also blamed God for giving her to him!) and then Eve blamed the serpent. As Rick showed last week, cover-up is our way of avoiding dealing with sin.

Sin always separates people! That is because sin is almost always an act of selfishness. It is about what I want without consideration of what is right, or what is best for others. It erodes trust, respect, and often it leaves people deeply wounded. It moves participants away from God which moves us away from love, redemption, and hope. It is not a coincidence that the first thing that happened to the couple was "they knew they were naked." Now they felt shame and vulnerability instead of trust and wholeness. Sin puts people on guard. It exposes our weaknesses.

Disruption with Animal World

Then the Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, you are cursed

more than all animals, domestic and wild.

You will crawl on your belly,

groveling in the dust as long as you live.

15And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring.

He will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

Some have wondered if the serpent that talked to Adam and Eve had legs and lost his legs as punishment. That is not a necessary conclusion. The point is the snake will be a symbol of evil. It will be vulnerable and sneaky.

For the first time, hostility came between the animal world and the human world. We used to live in harmony with the animals and with this one act the ripple effect disrupted that harmony. God in an act of His grace gave Adam and Eve animal skins to serve as the first set of clothes (if you don't count the fig leaves). Where did the animal skin come from? It likely came from an animal that was killed as a forerunner to Jewish animal sacrifice which was offered because of sin. Our relationship with the animal world was forever disrupted.

Don't miss verse 15 because it is very significant. It says the serpent and the snake will be enemies and HER OFFSPRING would strike Satan's head and Satan would strike his heel. In other words, God told Satan that he tripped up the woman with his trickery but eventually a descendent of the woman would defeat him. Who is that descendent? It's Jesus.

Physical/Relational Consequence

16Then he said to the woman,

“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy,

and in pain you will give birth.

And you will desire to control your husband,

but he will rule over you.”

17And to the man he said,

“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree

whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,

the ground is cursed because of you.

All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.

18It will grow thorns and thistles for you,

though you will eat of its grains.

19By the sweat of your brow

will you have food to eat

until you return to the ground

from which you were made.

For you were made from dust,

and to dust you will return.”

The Bible does not say delivering a baby was painless before the first sin. God said it would be MORE painful because of sin. That was the physical consequence but there is also a psychological consequence.

Scholars debate what the phrase "your desire will be to control your husband" means. Some other versions translate the verse, "your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you." Whatever it means, it at least means this: the sense of equality and partnership that was part of God's creative genius would now be strained. Every time there is conflict in marriage it is a reminder of the devastating nature of sin.

As for the man, labor would now be hard. Weeds would complicate matters. The work that was designed to be fruitful and enjoyable would now become tedious. Man would now feel he was on an endless treadmill that will lead to once again becoming dust through the decay of death.

The glory Adam and Even enjoyed in the garden is beyond our comprehension. It is more wonderful than we can conceive. The problems we have in our world: the wars, the environmental issues, the abuses are all a result of the seeds planted because of the Fall.

Romans 8 tells us

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Sin has consequences! I believe the evil, disease, abuse, birth abnormalities, natural disasters and more can all be traced back to the disruption caused by sin. This is not the world as God originally created it, it is the world that has resulted from the rebellion of human kind. Tougher laws, stricter regulations on guns, more environmental guidelines, and more rules about hate speech are all well-intended, but these things will not solve the problem! What is needed is a return to balance through faith and trust in Christ.

In Romans 5 the Apostle Paul writes,

For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.

Just as Adam led us into this mess, only Jesus can lead us out!

God's Covering Mercy

We aren't yet done with the text,

20Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. 21And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.

22Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” 23So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. 24After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

These seem like odd words, but this is really the first expression of grace. As I mentioned, the first expression of grace is the clothing from animal skin. When I wrote the book Faith Lessons I likened this to having a pet killed, skinned, and then wearing the skin as clothing. There is a lot of speculation in such a thought, but it is possible Adam was friendly with the animal that was killed to provide them clothing.

This would have been horrifying, which of course, was the point. God showed Adam and Eve after the very first sin that the "wages of sin is death." The animal became a substitute just like all the sacrifices offered before the Lord that were to come. Even now, God is pointing to the One who would become the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was already pointing to Jesus.

Second, God removed the couple from the Garden. God says this was to keep them from eating from the Tree of Life. God did not want them to live with the consequences forever. He removed them from the Garden to make it possible for them to be redeemed. Before we could be fully redeemed the old body would need to be cleansed and refined. This can't happen if you never die. What seems like a punishment was actually a rescue plan.

Conclusion

So what do we do with this information? I have a few simple applications. First, stop kidding yourself . . . sin has negative consequences. We can excuse, justify and rationalize all we want. Sin leaves victims in its wake and one of those victims is us. Sin separates us from God. When we sin, we commit treason against the Lord of the universe.

Stop kidding yourself! Stop going down the path that you are on! There will be consequences. Your fellowship with God is strained, the people around you may get hurt, your testimony may be severely damaged, you may be getting involved with something that will enslave you for a long time. Sin is not a game, a mistake, a poor choice . . . it is deadly.

Think about diet and exercise. If you eat poorly it is not simply that you may gain some weight. There are ripple effects. These poor eating habits may impact your heart, your joints, your energy level, your pancreas and your mobility. Sin is the same way. The Bible tells us if we confess our sins we will be forgiven, but . . . forgiveness does not wipe out all the consequences. Forgiveness is also not granted if we are not sorry for what we are doing! the first step in dealing with sin is facing it for what it is. Stop blaming and excusing and start by telling yourself the truth!

Second, we should view the evils of the present world not as a deficiency in the character of God but as the fruit of sinful mankind. Many people will tell you they would surrender to Jesus if it were not for all the evil in the word. However, all the evil in the world should actually cause us to run to the Lord immediately. It is time to stop blaming God for what is not His fault and thank Him for the mercy and grace that keeps us alive.

To blame God for the evil and violence in the world is like blaming me for the person who slammed into my car while texting and driving! It is like blaming the institution of marriage for adultery! Evil is caused by sin. Our hope is found only in the Lord.

Finally, this passage should increase our hunger for the Second Coming of Christ and Heaven. When the Lord returns the earth will finally be returned to the perfect state God created it to be. We get just a taste of that now when we walk with Him but . . . it is just a taste of something better than our minds can imagine.

Adam and Eve did not mean to create all this mess. However, that does not negate what happened. We can either learn from their mistake or keep making it again and again.