Sunday Morning Worship Service November 29, 2020

Well, good morning, this Sunday after Thanksgiving. I hope you had a nice week. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, however you spent that. I was talking to a few of you and I didn't hear of anybody that fasted on Thanksgiving.

Maybe the day after as penance, or repentance, I shouldn't say, we're not Catholic. But anyway, I hope you had a good week and looking forward to this first Sunday, call it first Sunday of Advent. We have four Sundays before Christmas.

This is the first of those. And be gearing up for thinking of and worshiping our Lord Jesus as he has come to redeem us. And looking at Christmas in four different angles in the course of these next few weeks.

Before we begin the service today, let me just emphasize a few things in your bulletin, if I may. So Wednesday night, because of the COVID stuff, we're not gonna have the typical format. I'll do a live stream midweek service at seven.

So just be a Bible study and a prayer time. I'll do that and you catch that on Facebook Live or the church website. But also we're looking forward to December 23rd. That'll be a Wednesday night candlelight service and encouraging the congregation to participate in some way.

So there are probably possibly some groups who would like to get together and practice and rehearse and so forth. So the doors will be open at 645 and any groups that wanna do that, you can come and do it.

If you wanna use the auditorium and the piano in the auditorium, you can do that. And I'll just do the live stream back in the library and just kind of hermit myself back there and you can practice during that time.

As I realized that those Wednesday night are times that are very fruitful for that kind of practicing. And then a couple of things down below, the Christmas offering. Today is the last Sunday to contribute to that.

I think I mentioned if you haven't become prepared to give to that, but you still want to, we really wanna get those offerings sent out, those gifts sent out later this week so that the missionaries get those gifts before Christmas.

So please, if you can't contribute today, somehow get that contribution in by Wednesday and we'll include that in the gift to the missionaries. So you see what we've received to date for that. We would like to be able to give each of the missionaries a couple of hundred dollars for a Christmas gift.

We have a little ways to go to accomplish that yet. And then this book, it's on the table in the foyer right now. There's, I think, four copies left entitled The Christmas We Didn't Expect. And these are a series of 24 little devotionals on Christmas and unexpected things related to Christmas.

I think that'd be a blessing to you if you're looking for a devotional material just to orient your mind in the right way for Christmas. I would commend that book to you. And then I did put a book in the library entitled Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.

It's a similar kind of thing. This is a devotional book with 22 different readings. And that would be, I think, a good encouragement for you for the Christmas holiday. Well, again, we've come together to worship the Lord and I want to begin with Psalm 13, verses five and six, says, I have trusted in your mercy.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. And he has dealt bountifully with us because of his great love, his love that is divine and excels all others.

We want to begin with number 126 in our hymnals this morning. Love divine, all loves excelling. Let's stand together, shall we, as we sing number 126. And we will sing stanzas one and three. Love divine, all loves excelling.

Joy of heaven to earth come down. Fix in us thy humble dwelling. All thy faithful mercies crown. Jesus, thou art all compassion. Pure, unbounded love thou art. Us with thy salvation. Enter every trembling heart.

On the third. Come, almighty, to deliver. Let us all thy life receive. Suddenly return and never. Thy temples leave. Thee we would be always blessing. Serve thee as thy hosts above. Pray and praise thee without ceasing.

Joy in thy perfect love. Remain standing for prayer, please. Dan, please lead us.

Our Father, again, we are so thankful for the things you've blessed us with this past year, Father, even with all this upheaval and chaos. And Father, we're thankful for the truths of the word of God.

May we look to the word this morning as we worship you, Father. Worship you in spirit and in truth. Father, guide pastor as he brings your word. May your spirit work in all of our hearts and our lives this day.

And we thank you, Father, that we can sing these praises unto your name. May we glorify your name this day. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Psalms as Congregational Worship

So for our psalm reading this week, we wanna read the first eight verses of Psalm 62. Psalm 62, verses one to eight, it's on the back of your bulletin if you wanna follow along as we read this together.

And I encourage you to do that. These psalms would have been sung and would have been sung perhaps by a choir in the temple, perhaps by the people at different times in the course of a year. It's a whole section of the psalms.

They call them the Psalms of Ascent in the early part of the 100s of the psalms. And those were sung by pilgrims as they journeyed to Jerusalem. So this is the hymnal and would be sung together in unison.

So read along with me in your mind, if you will, while I read Psalm 62, verses one to eight. Truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense.

I shall not be greatly moved. How long will you imagine mischief against a man? You shall be slain, all of you, as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. They only consult to cast him down from his excellency.

They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. My soul wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved.

In God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. And amen. And thank him for that he is.

The Father’s Love and the Cross of Christ

So in your song supplement, wanna sing number 32. 32, how deep the father's love for us. Maybe thinking, well, you know, the first Sunday of Christmas, of Advent, and we're not singing any Christmas hymns.

Well, it's all a matter of perspective, I think. How deep the father's love. How deep the father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son take a wretch his treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss the father turns his face away as wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to glory. Hold the man upon a cross my sin upon his shoulders. Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished. I will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ his death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart. His wounds have paid my rent. As we pray together this week, we want to remember Darren and Elizabeth Hammermeister, missionaries that are serving, endeavoring to plant a church in Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver.

If you can believe it, Canada and some of these Canadian provinces and the cities are in stricter lockdowns than we are here. So the Hammermeisters have not been able to meet with their congregation for six months now since March.

So we want to pray that that congregation hold together. That is one of their greatest concerns. Of course, they do try to meet, you know, connect with people every week, but just pray for them. And of course, they have been lacking in support for quite some time.

And I want to pray for the Lord to provide there. We'll be saying more about that in our budget presentation for the next year, we trust. I want to pray for the Hammermeisters. And then I want to pray for Heather.

She's to have an outpatient surgery tomorrow morning on her hand. We thought that was going to be last week, but the process now is you have to get a COVID test and pass that. And if you pass that, then you get cleared for surgery.

So she has passed that and is having that surgery tomorrow morning. Pray for effectiveness. It's going to be a little bit of a rehab after the fact. And then pray for Bob, who had the CAT scan or CT scan last week and get results from that this week.

And just pray for clear understanding as a result of that test. And then we also want to remember our shut-ins today and pray for them during this holiday season. Let's look to the Lord, shall we? Our Father and our God, one thing that we ought to be reminded of this particular season is how deep your love is for us, that you would send your only Son to be our Savior.

And when we consider that and contemplate that and recognize who we are and how unworthy we are of such an expression of love, our hearts should only well up in greater gratitude and thanksgiving. And so we do give you thanks this morning, our Father, for this great expression of your love of our Savior that's coming into this world and what he did for us on the cross.

We thank you, Father, that we have the privilege in this land of proclaiming that gospel message. We do pray for our country. We pray for the leaders that have been put into place, this government that you have given to us and established at this time, and those leaders who are instruments in your hands for your specific purposes.

And we pray for our president and for Congress. We pray for our governor and our state legislators. We pray for you to do a work of grace in their lives. We also pray that you would overrule any intentional efforts to restrict the work of gospel ministry and pray that we might be able to carry on that work in freedom and with relative ease.

And we pray that much would be accomplished through that faithful proclamation. We thank, too, of the Hammermeisters in Canada. And, Father, we think of the even greater restrictions not only related to the COVID epidemic, but just in general, some of the hostility expressed toward biblical truth and principles and standards of what you hold to be righteous and virtuous.

Some of that is maligned, and some of that is even on the verge of being outlawed in that land. So we pray for the Hammermeisters as they endeavor to plant a church and be faithful to proclaim the whole counsel of Scripture and in that kind of a climate.

We pray that you'd give Darren boldness. We pray that the gospel would be effective as he proclaims it. We pray that many would come to faith in Christ and you would draw them to yourself and draw them to that place or that opportunity where the gospel is presented.

Use them during this time of difficulty, of separation in the congregation where they can't even meet in the place that they had rented. And I pray that you would just bless, by keeping the church together, the people faithful to that work.

Encourage the Hammermeisters, we pray, and meet their every need financially as well as physically and emotionally. Father, we pray for Heather and this procedure she's to have tomorrow. I pray that it would be effective and that her recovery would be swift.

For Bob, as he gets the results from his CT scan this week, Tuesday, I believe, I pray that these results would give clear indication of how to move forward in his fight with cancer. Father, we do pray for our shut-ins and these folks who are struggling with the limitations placed upon them and upon us and being able to minister to them.

We pray for Sue and for Jeannie. We pray for Dean and we pray also for Jed. Lord, just bless them. Just encourage them. May they sense your presence with them during this time. We also pray for Maxine Gommer and pray that you would encourage her.

We know, Lord, she would just love to be in attendance on the Lord's Day at church. And I pray that you would encourage her in her limitations as well. Give her strength physically and relief from pain.

Our Father, we again thank you for your grace and your kindness to us. We are a needy people. We need your grace. We also need mercy. We are a people who, though we know better, we often don't do what we know.

We don't carry out what we know is your will. Father, we fail you in many ways. Forgive us these trespasses, I pray. Lord, I pray that you would speak to us through the remainder of our time together.

Bless our singing. Bless as we open your word. We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Meaning of the Hymn “Jesus Fair”

Let's take our supplement book again and turn to number 44. Number 44 is a song that's been a while since we've sung this, I think, by Jesus Fair. I want to sing stanzas 1, 3, and 4. 1, 3, and 4. Shall we stand together as we sing?

Jesus' fair was pierced by thorns, by thorns grown from the fall. Thus he who gave the curse was torn to end that curse for all. No love divine, no matchless grace, that God should die for man. With joyful grief I lift my praise, abhorring all my sin, adoring only him.

On the third, my Jesus' kind was torn by nails, by nails of cruel man. And to his cross, as grace prevailed, God pinned my wretched sin. No love divine, no matchless grace, that God should die for man.

With joyful grief I lift my praise, abhorring all my sin, adoring only him. My Jesus pure was crushed by God, by God in judgment just. The Father grieved, yet turned his rod on Christ, made sin for us.

No love divine, no matchless grace, that God should die for man. With joyful grief I lift my praise, abhorring all my sin, adoring only him. You may be seated. And any children that would like to attend the Children's Church, that is available as well.

The Fall in Genesis 3 and the Need for Christmas

If you would please take your Bibles and turn to Genesis 3 for a Scripture reading. Genesis 3, I want to read this morning the first eight verses. I'm sure it's probably a familiar passage to you. It's certainly a strange passage, I'm sure, to be looking at on the first Sunday of Advent.

Nevertheless, I think you'll understand the importance of it. Genesis 3, beginning in verse 1, I'll be reading down through verse 8. It says, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when a woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. The Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word, and just a brief prayer together. And so, our Father, I pray that as we look at this passage of Scripture and its implications and its consequences, that you would challenge our hearts, that you would also give us a sense of joy and gratitude to you for all that you've done because of this passage.

This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're being told by some politicians and by some health professionals as well that this coming holiday is going to be unlike any Christmas holiday that we've ever known in our lifetime.

And that leaves a lot of folks rather depressed. After all, this is supposed to be that most wonderful time of the year. And the way that it's being presented to us, it's not going to be wonderful. It's going to be a downer.

And so we're told. Anyway, well, that requires us, I think, to get back to basics. Does it have to be a downer if it's going to be different from anything we've ever experienced in our lifetime? Not if we get back to basics.

Remember what 1 Timothy 1 .15 says. It says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That brief sentence, that short little sentence, it packs a lot into it, doesn't it?

It expresses to us the beauty of Christmas. The beauty of Christmas is Christ Jesus. It expresses the glory of Christmas, that Christ Jesus, who is the God-man, God who became flesh, Christ Jesus came into the world.

This is the glory of Christmas. It expresses the purpose of Christmas, to save. But it also expresses the object of Christmas, sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But what I want us to notice is that all these elements that are in that sentence, that expresses so much about Christmas, all those elements come together not in the manger, but at the cross.

And so what I want us to do over these next few weeks is to celebrate the Calvary scene and not just the manger scene. Because, you see, if you celebrate the manger scene apart from the Calvary scene, you really strip Christmas of the whole reason for celebration.

And, of course, most people in our world do that very thing. But we're biblical Christians. We're Christians that want to celebrate Christmas in a biblical sort of way. So we want to do that this particular year by looking at Christmas from four different cross-centered perspectives.

The next Lord's Day, Lord willing, we'll look at the heartache of Christmas. The following Lord's Day, the candle of Christmas. And then the Sunday before Christmas itself, we'll look at the climax of Christmas.

But today, I want us to zero in on the ugliness of Christmas. The ugliness of Christmas? Whoever thinks of Christmas as having any ugliness to it, right? I mean, you look at these beautiful decorations, and we are grateful for them.

And I am grateful for Kelly and I don't know who all helped. I know some ladies, some young people came last night to put these things up and decorate the auditorium. And we enjoy the beauty of Christmas.

But here's the thing. To really enjoy the beauty of Christmas, we have to see the ugliness of Christmas. Because otherwise, if all we see are the lights and the tinsel and the trees and the wrapping paper, and we see that alone as the beauty of Christmas, that's very superficial.

And it's only as lasting and as deep as the decorations are up and as the wrapping paper wraps the gifts. So let's look beneath all of that. Let's look beneath all of that and discover the ugliness of Christmas that can very easily be covered up and overlooked or simply ignored.

So we see the ugliness of Christmas in what demanded it as well as what Christmas demanded. Let me say that again. We see the ugliness of Christmas in what demanded Christmas and in what Christmas demanded.

Let's look at the first of those two ideas first. The ugliness of our sin is what demanded Christmas. The ugliness of our sin demanded Christmas. We must acknowledge that. We must see that. As we look at the trappings, we look at the lights, we look at the candles, we look at the decorations, the beauty of it all.

Let's understand that beneath that beauty, there is the ugliness of our sin that demanded the beauty of Christmas. So here in Genesis 3, in this text that we're focusing on this morning, the ugly fact of our sin demands Christmas.

Here is the serpent that comes to Eve in the garden and you know the setup for that. Adam has been confronted by the Lord and the Lord told him, Adam, you can eat of any tree, any fruit in this garden that you want to eat of except for this one tree.

Don't eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat of that tree because in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Leave it alone. Stay away from it. So here in chapter 3, along comes the serpent, the wicked one in the form of a serpent and he beguiles Eve and she partakes of the fruit and then gives it to Adam who's apparently right there with her and he enjoys the fruit with her momentarily and plunges the race into the curse of sin which is death.

But what I want us to see in this passage is not Eve's sin. I want us to see that Eve's sin is our sin. How so? Well look, what she does in verses 4 and 5 is listen to the deception of the serpent. Serpent comes to her and he says to her, you're not going to die.

You can eat any of the fruit in this garden. You're not going to die. Even though God said you would, you're not going to. What God knows is that when you eat that fruit, you're going to be like him. This is the lie of the serpent.

This is the lie of the devil and it is a deceptive lie that Eve listens to. But here's the thing, every time you and I listen to the deception of the serpent, every time we listen to the deception of the wicked one, however that deception comes, whatever form it takes, when we listen to the serpent's deception, we demand Christmas.

We sin just as Eve sinned. Every time we look on something, as she did in verse 6, something that's forbidden and desire it for ourselves, we sin. We demand Christmas. She looks at this tree and she sees it's so good for food and it's good to make us wise and this fruit is so attractive.

It's so appealing.

I want it. I want it.

And you and I, thousands of years later, still do the same stuff that Eve does. This is why in the New Testament, we talk about the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Same kind of stuff that Eve was guilty of here.

Looking at this fruit that is forbidden and wanting it, desiring it for herself. Every time you look at fruit that is forbidden and desire it for yourself, you're falling into the trap, the sin trap that Eve fell into and it demands Christmas.

And every time that you overstep a divinely established boundary, as Eve did, she took of the fruit and ate. What was the boundary? Here's the boundary line.

It's like,.

Have you ever, if you've had a pet in your home that had a thing for the Christmas tree, I don't know if a cat or a dog. Many years ago in our home, we had a border collie that was attracted to the tree, not to use it like he might use it outside, you know what I'm saying.

But he just wanted to get at it. He wanted to get at the tree. So there were a couple things you could try to do and maybe you've done this. Maybe you put some kind of a gate around it. Some people put their tree in a playpen so their animal can't get it.

Well, in our case, the trick we used was to put a dust buster. You know, those little handheld vacuums. The dog was scared to death of the dust buster. You turn that thing on and he'll run away. You show him the thing and he'll run away.

So it was a very effective boundary at that Christmas tree to put the dust buster under the tree. Made for a very attractive Christmas tree too, right? But it put the dust buster under the tree and the dog knew there's a boundary line.

I'm not going to go past that. I better not go past that. God has put dust busters around things that are forbidden for us to partake of. And yet, in our fallen sinfulness, what do we do? Here's the boundary line.

God says don't go past that boundary line to get something that you want for yourself. And what do you do? You step right over the boundary line and you grab. And you demand Christmas. You demand Christmas.

Every time you rebel against the sovereign right of your creator, you demand Christmas. This is what Eve did as well, right? He is sovereign. He is the creator. He created Adam and then Eve. He created all things.

And as the creator of all things, he created this garden. He created all the trees and all the fruit ready to be picked, ready to eat. And he created these two people with a natural appetite to eat food.

He created all of this. But as the creator of all of this, he also has sovereign rights. He has sovereign authority to say this one thing is off limits. He has a sovereign right to say you can have anything that you want except for this.

And so, as our sovereign creator, exercises his rights and puts these boundaries in place and puts prohibitions in place, when we rebel against that sovereign authority of our creator, we, like Eve, sin.

And that demands Christmas. This is ugly stuff. When you misuse God's creation, as Eve did. Yes, he created this tree and put it in the middle of the garden. But it was a tree not to be eaten of. You could look at it.

You could wonder at it. But you're not to eat of it. And yet, here she is. She's misusing that which God has created for her own perceived benefit. Every time you and I misuse God's creation in a perverted way for our own benefit, but in a misuse of that, we engage in Eve's sin and it demands Christmas.

Ugliness of our sin demands Christmas. Every time you disobey and express command of God, don't eat of this fruit, of this tree. And she did eat. And her husband did eat with her. That is a clear-cut violation of a clearly revealed command.

How many times have you done that? You can't count them, can you? Most likely, you can think back in this past week of one or more times when you violated a clearly revealed command of God. And that violation demands Christmas.

Every time you act in pride, Eve looks at this fruit. She sees it as something that is desirable to make her wise.

Ooh.

This will improve me. This will make me like God. This will make me wise like God. What will I be then? This is pride. This is arrogance. Every time you and I act in pride, it demands Christmas. It demonstrates the necessity of Christmas.

And every time you and I attempt to rob God of His glory, every time, it demonstrates the necessity of Christmas. Eve did this when she listened to the serpent who said, You partake of this fruit. Eat this fruit, and then you will be like God, robbing Him of His glory.

What is the glory of God? One aspect of the glory of God, it's a vast one, of course, but it's the fact that He is other than we are. He is separated from us. There is a transcendence to God. He is an altogether other being.

And no matter how much we might want to be like God, how much we want to be God, we cannot be God. And every attempt that we might make to be like God, to be God, is an attempt to rob Him of His glory.

And that demonstrates the necessity of Christmas. This is the ugly fact of sin that demands Christmas. And the reality is that there's not a person in this room who has not been guilty of every one of those things that Eve was guilty of.

Hence, Christmas is absolutely necessary. How ugly, how ugly is that sin? And that sin, in all of its ugliness, brought along with it some really ugly consequences. There is the consequence in verse 7 of guilt.

They partook of this fruit, and verse 7 says, the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. All of a sudden, they're aware of something that they weren't aware of before.

They're experiencing guilt and shame. It wasn't necessary. There was no guilt. There was no shame yesterday. But now there's been this introduced into human existence, into the human psyche, into the human being.

There is introduced guilt and shame as a consequence of the fact of sin. There's also, in verses 8 through 10, the consequence that is really ugly of alienation from God. We have no idea what the fellowship between God and Adam and Eve was like prior to the eating of the fruit.

We can't imagine that. We experience a measure of fellowship with God as we read His Word. We hear Him speak to us through His Word. He speaks to us through the preaching of the Word and so on. We speak to Him in prayer, and we have a measure of communion.

But it's not like what Adam and Eve had. Even after the fall, God comes to them in some very tangible way that they can recognize. He comes to them in the cool of the day, and Adam hears the voice of God.

It's audible. It's recognizable. This was their norm. This was the way they communicated. This was the way they fellowshiped before the fruit. But now there's this sense of alienation. As God comes to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, they go and hide themselves.

And from this point on, from this point on, man doesn't seek God. Not in a very real way. Not in an accurate way. In fact, this is what the psalmist tells us, isn't it? In Psalm 14, verses 2 and 3,.

It says,.

What's the verdict? They are all gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. So from this point on, here in Genesis 3, man doesn't understand and then seek God.

It is God that must seek man. This is what Jesus himself said in Luke 19, verse 10.

He says,.

Why did the Son of Man need to come to seek and to save that which was lost? Because man doesn't understand and seek after God. Not since the fall.

How come?

Because he's alienated from God. Another consequence we see in verses 12 and Genesis 3, verses 12 and 16 is the consequence of estrangement from one another. When Adam is confronted with his sin, what does he do?

This woman that you gave to me, that you made of me, and you gave to me, this woman, she's the one that enticed me to eat this. She gave me the fruit and I did eat. You see the alienation? You see the separation?

You see the estrangement that has entered into human existence? Only two people on the planet and now they are estranged from one another because of this sin. The estrangement is continued to this day and it's prophesied even in verse 16.

As the Lord says to the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and, here's the key, thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.

There's different ideas of what that means but I believe what's going on here is the Lord is giving a prophecy, if you will, about the battle of the sexes. How that from here on out, woman is going to desire a certain level of mastery over man and will manipulate him to get that mastery.

It can be a rather humorous thing to see at times. Have you ever seen that movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding? It's one from years and years ago. But in that movie, there's a woman who is Greek, fully Greek, and she wants to marry a man who isn't.

The problem is, her dad wants her to marry only a Greek guy. The mom, who's also fully Greek, understands love. And love cannot be put in a box and contained within national boundaries, if you will. So the mom is sympathetic to her daughter's love for this non-Greek guy and they're talking.

The mother and the daughter are talking about how in the world are we going to get dad to come around? And the mother says something to the effect that, because the daughter says, Dad's the head.

He's the head of the house. He rules. He's the head.

And the mother says, Oh, he's the head, but I'm the neck that turns the head. And it's a funny line in that particular movie. But what that funny line in that movie illustrates is this very thing, that there is this estrangement to the extent that the two are not always going to be in harmony as they were before.

And it's not just on the woman's part. It's on the man's part as well. From here on out, man will at times seek to control the woman by force even if necessary. And there have been horrible, horrible examples of this.

This is a consequence of the sin, our ugly, ugly sin. Another ugly consequence of our ugly sin is the ongoing conflict with Satan that we see in verse 15. The Lord says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman.

He's speaking to the serpent. And between thy seed and her seed. The Lord is saying that from here on out, her seed, plural, this is plural. That is talking about every human being that comes from these two people, Adam and Eve and specifically the seed of the woman.

Every human being is going to be in conflict with Satan. And you have been, I have been, and so has everybody before you, and so will everybody after you been in conflict with this wicked one who wants to destroy your soul.

Another ugly consequence of this ugly sin is suffering. Something that, something that is the most glorious experience in humanity, the birth of a child, is marred by pain and suffering. This is what the Lord says in verse 16 to the woman.