The Fall of Mankind Part 2, Genesis 3:14-24

The Promise of the Serpent-Crusher in Genesis 3:14-15

Last week what we looked at was the fall of mankind in the beginning of Genesis chapter 3 and what we saw was that Genesis 3 is a telling of the darkest day in human history and Yet hope is visible to the one who looks closely.

And what we saw last week was the bad news. Adam and Eve were Tempted by the serpent who was Satan and they gave in to sin. What we saw last week was the first two observations from this text in the first 14 verses.

The first observation we saw was the first couple sins. The second observation that we saw Was the first couple feels ashamed as they face God. And what we're going to look at today is is two Observations and what we're going to see in these observations is the hope of Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve sinned.

This plunged the entire human race into sin. But God in his grace gives us hope. And the third observation this morning Carrying over from last week is the consequences for sin with a glimpse of hope.

The consequences for sin with a glimpse of hope look with me again at Genesis chapter 3 verses 14 through 15. The Lord God said to the serpent 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 and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

What we see is God's judgment against the snake and we see its future conflict With the woman. So what God is doing here? After Adam and Eve sinned is he's delivering three judgments three different consequences for three different parties.

The first party is the is Satan. The second party is The woman and the third party is the man. Now this curse that God lays out to the snake is Not a special curse on all snakes in general like some have said.

Rather it is specifically referring to who the snake represents Satan and what God is doing here is he's using the language that describes a snake to describe the doom that Satan faces for tempting Adam and Eve.

Now snakes if we're honest One thing we can say is that snakes were an odd creation of God even though he designed it this way. As it as it crawls on the ground without legs. What God is doing here is using figures of speech to describe Satan's doom through just describing the snake.

Snakes live a life of subordination and Humiliation and these will be the consequences of Satan. And so God lays this curse upon him in verse 14 when he says on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

Now verse 15 Describes the other consequence. I'll read this again verse 15. I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel.

This verse many believe is the first direct mention of Jesus Christ in the Bible. It has actually been called the first gospel in the beginning of verse 15 the you is referring to Satan and The woman is referring to Eve so that so the enmity here is between Satan and the woman in.

The second part of verse 15 we see that this conflict does not stop between the woman and Satan. But continues through their offspring as the text says here. This conflict is between your offspring and her offspring.

So the offspring of Satan and the offspring of the woman. Now who is the offspring of the woman we need to find out the identity of these offspring first the woman. Let's read the last part of 15 to find out.

As the last part says he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The offspring is going to defeat the serpent. That's what we just read. At the end of 15 the offspring of the woman is translated with the personal pronoun and he.

So the he is singular. Where the offspring that was mentioned before Is is probably plural. Now some believe that the offspring proceeding it is also singular meaning that this is just referring to Christ.

But others believe that the offspring is many and the singular he that follows is referring to Christ finally to defeating Satan. The many would be God's chosen line or God's people that eventually leads to Christ or.

A singular offspring would just be Christ and not referring to this line of offspring. Either way you interpret this at all points to Christ. The last part of verse 15 tells us why. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

The heel of the offspring is bruised while the head of the serpent is bruised. As you think about this What is more serious? What is a more serious injury a blow to the heel or a blow to the head? This verse tells us that Satan will suffer a blow to the head.

The consequence of him tempting Adam and Eve will lead to his final destruction. So clearly the bruising to the head is is much more serious because a Blow to the head leads to a fatal blow. Where bruises is is suffering and as you look at the history of the world What Satan has done is he has bruised the heel of the offspring of the woman he has he has bruised the heel of God's people through persecution.

Through telling them lies and whatever it may be in what what what Satan has did to Jesus Christ is he Of course caused Judas to betray him. He caused the Jews to deliver him up to be crucified he caused the Romans to nail him to a cross that Jesus was bruised mightily, but but the destruction of Satan is what we need to see here at the cross of Jesus Christ and through the resurrection Satan was defeated and His final defeat will come at the end of the age when Christ throws him into the lake of fire.

So the defeat of Satan happened at the cross and through Christ's resurrection and his final defeat Will be at the end of the age when Jesus throws him into the lake of fire. So when we ask the question in verse 15 is the offspring singular or plural?

It does not matter. Since God's people are victorious through Christ. So Christ and God's people will crush the head of the serpent will crush the head of Satan. As we just saw the good news and this is wonderful news because remember last week we saw the bad news we saw the mankind plunges into sin.

We see good news here. So I have to receive this good news. This provides hope for the future consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve because we see That offspring from the woman is going to be victorious after the serpent's Consequence now comes the consequence of sin for Eve and All women look with me please at verse 16.

To the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing in pain. You shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Women will suffer pain in Childbirth and we know this from experience and there's many women in this room who know this from experience that Giving birth is very very difficult.

Us men Do not have that experience and we don't know what what you go through. The difficulty with childbirth is traced back to this day when Eve sinned. So that's the first consequence. Second consequence is a fight for leadership between man and woman.

That's what the second half of verse 16 is saying here your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. I Mentioned earlier that God recognizes the man as the head of the household.

Remember last week when Adam and Eve sinned. Who did God address? He didn't address Eve. He addressed Adam. Because Adam is the head of the household. One of the consequences of sin is that the woman will try to rule over the man breaking God's good design.

In response the end of verse 16 says that the man will rule over the woman. So instead of leading gently the man leads by dominating over his wife. So there is this seesaw battle for who is in charge.

When it's designed to be that the man leads gently and then the woman helps in this it in this marriage. The woman is the helper. The man leads gently and as a team effort and that is broken. To now there's this seesaw battle the man and the woman are trying to be the leader and the man Tries to be Go go way above and beyond of the woman tries to do something that she was never meant to do.

And to those who are married if you are honest this experience to a certain extent has probably showed up. It may not be on the husband's end or abuse on the husband's end or the wife becoming the boss of the home.

But it subtly shows itself in the little things marriage is difficult and Part of the reason it is difficult is because of this fight for leadership and this struggle comes from the fall. It's a consequence from the fall.

It's a consequence of sin so that so that is the consequences of the woman and all women. So we saw the snake Satan and now we see the woman and now we're gonna see Adam. The man Adam Also hears about the consequence for his sin in verses 17 through 19, so please look with me there 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.

In the second half of verse 17 when God says that that cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life this highlights that the ground will not produce like it did before the fall and the work will be painful and Frustrating and this is your experience.

Also as you look at your life. This is your experience. We have some farmers who are in this church. You have down seasons for a variety of reasons. Some of you have gardens sometimes your temperature tomatoes don't grow very well or Flowers die from lack of rain before the fall.

Adam worked and received an abundance of crop and produce. But the consequence of Adam's sin is that his works? Or is that his work has become difficult and He is going to have to work hard to get far less than before sin came into the world as the beginning of verse 19 says.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. This does this does not just apply To agricultural work. You may have had a day at work where it was frustrating and there was little to no productivity.

This is a consequence of the fall and the last consequence is the worst consequence of all and this not only applies to men but to women as. Well, and that is death the end of verse 19. Till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall Return.

It is a guarantee that he is going to die and he's going to die because he sinned. Remember when the Lord said in the day you eat you Will surely die dying. You will surely die. That's what it says. Literally the sin he commits makes this a certainty.

And we see graveyards everywhere all over planet Earth all over this area everywhere. You go. You will find a graveyard in. The graveyard is a reminder that that humans are sinners. And because we are sinners we die and this is addressed to Adam.

But as I mentioned, this is also the consequence for the woman and all humans after Romans 5 12 Says that just as sin came into the world through one man and death Through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

The Move from Paradise to Paradise Temporarily Lost

Okay, so that was the third observation. About this darkest day in human history the fourth and final observation of Genesis 3 is the move from paradise to a paradise. Temporarily lost. So at point three we saw a little bit of good news that that this the serpent will be crushed and the and mankind has this hope and.

That is definitely good news as we saw the consequence for sin with a glimpse of hope. Now in verse 4 we're gonna see the paradise to a paradise temporarily temporarily lost. Now the key word here is temporarily.

In our last point this morning. I want to focus on the fact that there is hope. We've already seen that with with the offspring of the woman crushing the serpent. But we're gonna see more hope here on this darkest day.

When what we're gonna see here is that Adam and Eve are covered. They're covered by God. Verse 20 the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living and The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Now one thing we can draw from this is that in order for God to make garments of skins an animal would need to be killed. Clearly that's the case here. This implies that an animal was sacrificed and this points ahead to a future sacrifice for sin.

If you look at the Old Testament God set up a sacrificial system where sin Would be atoned for through the temple through the tabernacle and then through the temple. And the author of Hebrews Explains that the whole purpose of that was to point ahead to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Because at the cross Christ was sacrificed for sinners. And so we see the Adam and Eve sinned and we see that a sacrifice has been offered for their sins. And so once again what we see here. When we saw this in verse 15, we see the fact that God is not done with humanity.

God has been very gracious to humans as I said in the introduction. We already see God's plan of a redemption for mankind in this chapter. What we see in these last few verses is that redemption is a future event.

And so even though Adam and Eve are covered here, they're good. They need a Redeemer. They need one who is going to come. They need the one who's going to crush the serpent. That's the one they need. So we're gonna see them leaving paradise.

That has been temporarily lost. Verses 22 through 24. Then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest you reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.

Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Now what we see here is it is something that's very important the tree of life. What is the tree of life? As verse 22 says God does not want the sinful humans to eat from this tree. Because if they do they will continue living.

There was something in this tree that would sustain Human life that that would sustain earthly physical life and this would be horrible because if they eat from this tree of life, they will live forever as sinners and God says no, that's not gonna happen.

So God expels them from the garden. He puts a cherubim an angel to guard it. Adam and Eve were priests of the garden since it was God's sanctuary and they failed in their task of Guarding it and when you read later on in the Old Testament, the cherubim would later be in the tabernacle and the temple to represent the the place where God will he.

The cherubim will be in in what was referred to as the most holy place or the holy of holies. It's what we see here in this fourth observation is the hope. That there is a sacrifice for sinners. The sacrifice of animals would point ahead to the once-for-all sacrifice of the God-man Jesus Christ.

So this is the fourth observation of Genesis 3. The move from paradise to a paradise temporarily lost. And as we just saw a glimpse of hope for a future sacrifice and God once again Dwelling with man in paradise because that that is What human history is?

Moving toward there is going to be a day where God dwells with man once again on the earth. And I'm gonna read that in a second. But man dwelling with God has been lost momentarily. But through Jesus Christ the promised offspring that will crush Satan and pay for the sins of everyone who believes in him.

This dwelling with God will be restored. I Close by saying Where are you with God this morning? Anybody who can hear my voice out there a question to you is Where are you with God this morning? Will you One day be in this paradise or The only other place that you will go if you do not go to this paradise is that you will go to hell.

Because people's sins are paid for in one of two places. Either at the cross of Jesus Christ or in hell forever. That is the clear teaching of scripture. And so my prayer for you Is that everyone who can hear me that everyone here today? Would believe in Jesus Christ that you would know him as your Lord as your Savior as your treasure.

And many of you have believed. But if you have not I invite you to do so. Once you belong to God this future forever paradise will Be yours and it can never be taken away from you as I just as I mentioned a little bit ago I'm gonna close this morning by reading from Revelation Chapter 21 and this is gonna get this is gonna give the picture of this future paradise That is coming for all who belong to Jesus Christ.

This this will be theirs Revelation 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth Had passed away and the sea was no more and I saw the holy city New Jerusalem Coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride Adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold The dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and They will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither there shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things Have passed away. This is what is coming this future paradise.

And right now we live in a paradise Temporarily lost and we see that in the world we live in and so my prayer for you is that you would grab ahold of? Jesus Christ believe that he died in your place that he paid the penalty for your sins when he bore the wrath of God and reconciled you to God.

Next week We will look at the story of Cain and Abel and we will see the effects of the fall Immediately by the first murder in human history and other sins that followed. Let's pray father in heaven as we look at this passage in the second half of Genesis 3 and we see that The promise that The serpent will be crushed.

Satan's already been defeated and one day he will be finally defeated. And it's the offspring. It's Jesus Christ and all who belong to him who are conquerors who are conquerors and We're able to be with Jesus because of his sacrifice because our sins have been atoned for.

And father I give you praise For that and I pray Lord that there anybody everybody who can hear me that that they would Understand this that the gospel would be crystal clear to them and that they would embrace Jesus Christ As their Lord Savior and treasure.

I pray for this in Jesus name Amen.