^{                14} So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. ^15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring^a and hers; he will crush^b your head, and you will strike his heel.”

^{                16} To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

^{                17} To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. ^18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field. ^19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

^{                20} Adam^c named his wife Eve,^d because she would become the mother of all the living.

^{                21} The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ^22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ^23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ^24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side^e of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Do you realize that SW Wisconsin has recently set a record? We have officially gone fourteen months without another one hundred year flood. This is a picture of our next door neighbor taken from the last one hundred year flood in June 2008. Our poor neighbor had mud pouring into his basement, a lake in his backyard and a river in front and on both sides of his house. I love this picture, because if you zoom in you can see him staring at his fishing boat. He’s got to be thinking, “OK, how much longer before I get into this thing?

This is part of the frustration of living in this sin-cursed world that began in Genesis chapter three. We know from earlier in Genesis that we are to have dominion over the earth and much practice of our dominion is specifically directed at overcoming the endless frustrations. Our mechanical and chemical technology has allowed us to squeeze huge amounts of food out of a single acre of crops and has, in effect, helped to overcome the frustration of thorns and thistles and growing food by the sweat of our brow. Our medical technology has reduced the pain of childbirth with C-sections and epidurals. There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to reduce the effects of the Fall. As I said, much of this is a valid part of our exercise of dominion over creation, but we will never win the war over suffering and death. Moreover, in God’s pronouncement of guilt, he certainly did not intent to limit the effects to having babies and growing food.

1.      The Pronouncement of Guilt

The pronouncement of guilt was more than the beginning of pain and suffering. The pronouncement struck at the heart of their existence. It pierced the heart of what it meant to be a man and woman. God’s ordained role for women was to bear fruit from their wombs and God’s ordained role for men was to bear fruit from the ground. In other words, women make babies and men make money. Women are the nurturing and men are providers. The frustration of the Fall would be that now women will give birth in pain and men will provide in pain. The pronouncement of guilt struck at the heart of their God-ordained role.

A feminist or even an evangelical feminist might complain, “That is so unfair. To you, women are nothing but baby factories!” But the man could turn this on its head and reply, “Yeah, and all I am to you is a paycheck!” You see, when you hear arguments like this, it only proves the point of this passage—men’s and women’s role are all messed up due to sin. Adam would never have reduced Eve to a baby factory and Eve would never have merely kept Adam around to provide for her needs and wants. They never could have had this baby factory/paycheck kind of argument because they were perfectly content to operate within their God-ordained roles.

We see this struggle further in verse sixteen where God declares to the woman, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” A quick, overly simplistic interpretation of this verse sounds like this: you are going to really like your husband, in fact, you will greatly desire him, but instead of loving you in return, he will rule over you with an iron fist. I can confidently say that is not what this verse means.

We can shed light on this verse by looking at genesis 4:7. When God confronted Cain with his anger he said, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Sin desired to “have” Cain, that is, it desired to master Cain and make him its slave. In the same way, the woman’s desire will be for the husband in the sense of wanting to usurp his God-given authority.  Like the swollen rivers during our hundred year floods, she will desire for her authority to overflow its banks and take over Adam’s domain. She will desire the authority that belongs to Adam. In turn, Adam will rule over Eve in an over-controlling, domineering, even abusive manner. Eve’s natural inclination will be to usurp authority and Adam’s natural inclination will be to abuse authority. These are distortions that will seek to dominate us and our relationships. Don’t we see this almost daily in our relationships of the relationships of others around us? Every problem in a marriage can ultimately be traced back to this usurping and abuse.

Evangelical feminists, if they are honest, grudgingly admit that the apostle Paul seems to lay out different roles for men and women in the NT church. Men are to lead in love and women are to follow with respect. But these same evangelical feminists claim that these different roles were a result of the Fall and not a part of the original creation. In earlier chapters I already spent two messages demonstrating that the different roles between men and women were indeed a part of the original creation. Prior to Genesis three these roles worked out wonderfully but ever since the Fall there has been nothing but pain and suffering between men and women. The feminists see the distortions in the relationships—the usurping and abuse—and they mistakenly equate this distortion with the original creation. As with everything, the Fall has distorted that which God created as “very good.”

To show you how marriage relationships can be damaged, what this humorous short video.

If we only had Genesis three to understand the source of all sin and the effects of the Fall, we might not conclude that things aren’t too bad. Men have pain when they grow food and women have pain when they grow babies. Men and women will not always get along. This is no longer a state of paradise, but taken by itself, this doesn’t sound all that terrible. But it was terrible, for it wasn’t just Adam and Eve who lost Paradise. It wasn’t only them who were cast away from God’s presence. This curse was going to affect their Son Seth and his son Enosh, then Kenan, then Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, then finally passed down to Ray Maurer and his son, Rich Maurer. This curse was far reaching—to the ends of the earth, to every person who would ever be born.

Romans 5:12 spells it out clearly.  “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” We inherit a sinful nature from Adam but then we all actualize the gift of inheritance by sinning ourselves. It is sort of an heir receiving his inheritance—the gift is reserved in his or her name but it does not actually belong to them until he reaches the legal age of inheritance.

Some might complain, “I don’t think it is fair that I inherited my sinful nature through Adam. I didn’t eat the forbidden fruit so why should I be punished?” This is a common objection for which I could say much, but I’ll limit it to two responses. First, you are guilty as everyone is guilty because we actually have broken God’s commandments—all of them—repeatedly. We are undeniably and hopelessly guilty. Even if you had not inherited Adam’s guilt—which of course we did—we still would be guilty due to our own sin. Second, if you object to receiving something that you didn’t actually do (i.e. having Adam’s sinful nature applied to you) then you also have to object to receiving the saving grace of Christ because you don’t deserve that either.

Again, from the fifth chapter of Romans: “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” (5:21) The righteousness of Christ was not earned by us—it was applied to our account through faith in Christ. I don’t hear too many Christians claiming that it isn’t fair that God gave me his perfect righteousness so I don’t think we ought to complain about inheriting Adam’s guilt.

2.      The Promise of Rescue

Besides, right in the middle of this pronouncement of guilt we are given a promise of rescue. Interestingly, this promise appears in the middle of the curse on Satan. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. Can anyone disagree that there has been enmity and hostility between Satan and mankind? That is gigantically obvious, isn’t it? That is part of our fall from grace. But the promise comes in the next phrase: he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. The ESV is a better translation of this phrase: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The offspring of Adam and Eve is Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem and Rich Maurer. All of them have experienced great hostility with Satan, but the offspring in this verse is not offspring plural, but it is a singular noun and suddenly becomes a “he”. The “he” in this verse is not referring to all of humanity, but to one man. A man will arise who will bruise the head of Satan. This man who bruises Satan will himself be bruised. Who is this one man who will bruise the head of Satan but be bruised in the process? It can be none other than Jesus Christ. Most theologians refer to this verse as the protoevangelion—the first good news. This is the first hint of the gospel summarized in an early form.

This announcement of good news is a pattern of the way God works with his people. Throughout the OT, especially in the Law and the Prophets, there are multiple pronouncements of discipline and judgment upon his people, but judgment always has a promise attached to it. God will judge his people, but he always leaves a remnant of faithful Israelites. God will send the nation into exile, but he will also bring them back. Discipline is linked with a promise. Adam and Eve willingly chose to abandon the Lord, but the Lord cannot abandon them.

It is like the Lord has said, “You turned away from me, wandered in the wilderness and became lost.” We cannot sugar coat this one bit. Every person sitting here this morning either was lost at one time or is still lost. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his or her own way. There is no one who is righteous, not even one. We were, or are, dead in our transgression and sins, by nature we were objects of God’s wrath. But though we walked away from God and became lost in our sin, God has said to us, “I will come and look for you. I will leave the ninety nine who are found to look for you. And when I find you, there is going to be a celebration in Heaven. When you, the prodigal, return, there will be great rejoicing—a party in Heaven for you.

Jesus gave a wonderful promise in Matthew 7. “For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” This seems to imply that if you seek the Lord, he will be found. But how can this promise be guaranteed? Because Jesus also said that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10) Do you see? While you are seeking for God he is also seeking after you. In fact, the whole reason that Jesus came is to seek his people. More than that, if he was not first seeking us, we would never seek after him. In John 6:44, Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” If you are seeking after God it is only because the Father is drawing you to himself. The Father is drawing and the Son is seeking, therefore, you will find the Lord if you are seeking. You will find the Lord in your seeking because he is seeking after you.

But even with this promise of seeking and drawing, some will say, “How could God have abandoned us and thrown us out of the garden in the first place? Why was the punishment so harsh?” If this is our attitude, we fail to understand this chapter. If you shoot someone the police find you standing over the dead body holding a smoking gun, the jury will declare you guilty of murder in the first degree. The jury did not make you guilty, they simply pronounced your guilt. In the same way, God did not make us guilty, he merely pronounced us guilty. Moreover, when Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden, it was not really a punishment per se, but more of a natural consequence of their own choice. If I dive into the Niagara River, what will be the consequence of my choice? I will plunge to my death over the mighty Niagara Falls. If I choose to hang out with a bunch of gang bangers, what will be the consequences of my choice? I will almost certainly not live to see my 30^th birthday. Adam and Eve chose to walk away from God so God allowed them to fully experience the natural consequences of their own choice. In effect, God said, “Since you want to walk away from me, I think you might as well walk right out of the Garden. If your definition of happiness is moving away from me, then I think you will be happier the further away you get.

The natural consequence of walking away from God was to lose the presence of God. This is why the most effective disciplinary tool in the parenting tool box is natural consequences. If my child parks his bike behind the van and I crush it on my way out of the driveway, is there any need to yell ay my child or punish him? No, all I need to do is let him or her experience the natural consequences of their actions. All I need to do is not to buy them a new bike. Losing the bike is the best possible lesson that they could learn. In every sense, God is the perfect parent and he knows that we needed to experience the consequences of our own choices. We were born with a sinful nature and then willingly chose to sin. We were born with a propensity to walk away from the Lord and then we did. Our natural consequence is the punishment. If nothing changes, we will be away from God’s presence for all eternity. Hell is not so much a place as it is an emptiness. It doesn’t really matter what Hell is like—whether there is literal fire or if demons actually poke you with pitchforks for all eternity—Hell is simply the absence of God, and salvation is the presence of God.

We were, or are, all absent from God’s presence. But thankfully the promise is linked with the pronouncement of guilt. Satan’s head will be bruised. The Seed of Adam will rescue us. He will dive into the Niagara River, throw us onto the shore and be crushed on the rocks at the bottom of the falls. He will enter the circle of gang bangers and take the bullet from the drug dealer that was meant for us. He is not just rescuing us from a bad place that we accidentally stumbled into, he is rescuing us from the natural consequences of turning our back on him.

Rich Maurer

August 23, 2009