SGFC Worship Service - September 27, 2020

Good morning.

It is good to see everyone this morning.

I look forward to Sunday every week.

You know I have trouble sleeping on Saturday night.

I really do.

I look forward to being here.

I look forward to being with you all and I'm thankful that you're here.

I'm thankful that we get to worship together this morning.

Just a quick reminder if you are a first-time visitor with us this morning, I don't see any but sometimes I miss folks, if you're a first-time visitor with us this morning, inside your worship folder there is a little tag that can be torn off.

We'd ask that you tear that off, fill it out, and drop it in the offering plate when we have the offering later.

If you're a member, we'd like for you to register your attendance with us so that we know that you were here.

But the most important thing on there of course is prayer requests.

If you have things that you want us to pray for, you can fill that out and drop it in the offering plate when it is passed.

There is a lot that we have to do today but the most important thing is to praise the Lord.

Let us stand together and start praising by welcoming one another into worship.

Let's stand and welcome our neighbors and when you hear the music begin, let us sing together.

On God's special shore, I'll fly away.

I'll fly away, oh, glory, I shall.

Those honors of ours, as bones will say, Hallelujah, by and by.

And you may be seated and Brother Andy's going to come and he's going to read 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 to us.

We have been reading through the New Testament, we'll continue to do so, and I just wanted to say this.

You know, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we exhort one another to examine ourselves as we partake.

And so I wanted to say this morning, we ought to examine ourselves as we listen to the Word of God.

That the reading of the Word of God is not something, it's not time out for us to go and think about all the different things that are on our minds.

We ought to give attendance to the Word of God and that's why we read it publicly.

And again, I will say not only should we be very careful how we handle Jesus, you ought to be very careful how we handle God's Word.

So with that, I want to read to you 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 as Paul gives multiple exhortations to the church of Thessalonica at the end of this epistle.

So 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

But when they say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that the day should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light, sons of the day.

We are not of the night nor of the darkness.

Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.

Then let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Therefore, comfort one another and edify one another just as you are doing.

And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake.

Be at peace amongst yourselves.

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those that are unruly.

Comfort the fainthearted.

Uphold the weak.

Be patient to all.

See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing.

In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophesies.

Test all things.

Hold fast what is good.

Abstain from every form of evil.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, he who calls you is faithful, who will also do it.

Pray, brethren, pray for us.

Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.

I charge you before the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

In the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Amen.

May God bless his word.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

In our service where we have an opportunity to give to the Lord as an act of sacrifice and an act of love and to return a portion of what he has given to us and so this is the time that we call the offering and the scriptures in the New Testament tell us that this is something that we must decide in our heart to do not reluctantly and not because we have to but because we want to as the scripture says for God loves a cheerful giver so my encouragement to you today is that as we sing the next song to give cheerfully and to give what the Lord has laid on your heart we have two receptacles in the front these two bowls are for offering we have an offering plate in the back here we have an offering plate in the back over there now the closest deacon who's not tied up is Adam so Adam would you come and pray for our offering and then we will sing a song and while we sing you're welcome to come Let's pray.

Our great Heavenly Father Lord we thank you for the opportunity to come together this morning and worship you freely Lord God we humble our hearts before you and we just thank you for this opportunity that we have to give back a portion of what you bless us with I pray that the money that's given today will be greatly used to impact your kingdom Father bless the giver from the cheerful heart Lord in your name I pray.

Amen Amen Washing away my pain I still believe in your faithfulness I still believe in your truth I still believe I still believe I still believe Answers slowly unwind From my heart I see you breathe Washing away my I still believe I still believe I still believe I still believe I still believe You won't see I still believe You won't see I still believe Amen you may be seated Every week a different elder prays and a different elder reads and a different elder does the table I don't know if you've noticed that or not but that's sort of our rotating schedule and Brother Andy lets us know the night before that it's your turn to pray, it's your turn to preach or not preach, I preach every week but it's your turn to pray or do the table or whatever and I don't know how many of you know this or not I don't know how many of you keep up with world politics and things like that yesterday a pretty big event happened the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice was made and when Brother Andy asked me if I would do the prayer today I said well I think we ought to pray for Amy Coney Barrett she is about to experience a form of investigation that is sure to be no less than very difficult we saw what happened the last time and you know I don't know much about her I don't know much about her faith but I know the way they treated the last guy was pretty awful and I hate to see any human being any image bearer of God have to be treated that way especially somebody who is taking on a very thankless job and so I think we should pray for our country I think we should pray for her as an individual and if she doesn't know the Lord we should pray for that too that would be a wonderful and important thing I want to also pray for my brother Chris this morning Chris Belcher, his friend died his name is Tiger Beck about his age, a very young man and has passed away so I want to pray for the Beck family I want to pray for the Belcher family as they are going through a time of grief and I want to ask God to be merciful on them and to watch over them I did a service yesterday for a young man, 48 years old who did not know the Lord while I was preaching his funeral somebody got up and went to the back and complained to the funeral director and said, he didn't believe in Jesus he wouldn't want this and afterwards I said there is nothing he would want more right now than this because he knows now, unfortunately and I wasn't preaching for him, I was preaching for them funerals are for the living and that's it there is a lot to think about eternity sure is a long time so we got a lot to pray for today you have in your worship folders a list of things to pray for I'm so thankful that we have Walter here is he still here, did he have to leave? oh there he is I'm glad you're back Walter and it's wonderful to have you and it's good to have you sharing you've been with us now for several weeks I'm very thankful for that such a blessing to see and it's good to see you Stephanie too so you said lost her husband that was the pastor that you knew? is this the pastor that you told me about? ok because there was a pastor that was that you told me about well I'm so sorry to hear that that's a lot to deal with no no we want to pray right? thank you for sharing what's the name of the family? what's the name of the family? the Morrises alright well we'll pray for the Morrises we'll pray for the Becks thank God for you guys who are here and if you have things on your mind and on your heart I'm going to give you just a few seconds to pray on your own and take everything that you have to the Lord and then I'll lead us in our time of prayer together so let's bow our heads Father we come to you in Jesus name Lord we thank you we thank you that we can come in Jesus name Lord I was just meditating yesterday on the fact that sometimes we get caught up in the reality that you can't go to heaven without Jesus and we forget the blessing that we can go to heaven with Jesus and that's the only way but that's the great thing is there is a way you didn't have to you didn't have to give us a way you didn't have to give us anything you were not obliged to us at all for God we are rebels as we will see in our text today Lord we are following after our father Adam who was a rebel in the garden and who was the subject of your judgment and we Lord we rebel in the same spirit of Adam every time we sin against you we give our yes and amen to what Adam did and Lord we stand apart from Christ fully condemned in our sins and yet you love the world so much that you sent your only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but will have eternal life and so now we know that if we are in the beloved if we are in the son we are no longer subject to separation we are no longer subject to division but we have been we have been united with Christ and therefore we have been made partakers of the blessings that he deserves Lord we have been adopted into your family and we now get to cry out Abba Father Lord where before we could not before we came to Christ we were rebels and we were strangers and we were we were as it were we were outside of the commonwealth of Israel but now we have been brought near by the blood of Christ and Lord now in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither male nor female there is neither slave nor free but we are all one in Christ Jesus and the ground is level at the foot of the cross we all stand as ones who deserve your punishment but at the foot of the cross we receive your mercy we receive your grace as a gift and Lord because of that we can say we come to you in Jesus name because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the blessed name of Jesus Christ Father thank you thank you for that wonderful gift thank you for that wonderful promise thank you that we can come into your presence though we don't deserve it and Father as we today think about all of the prayer requests that are on our heart Lord first we want to say that we confess to you that we could never extinguish all of our needs on a prayer request list or even by talking to one another because Lord our needs run so deep and so wide but yet your word tells us you are able you are able to meet all of our needs in Christ and so Lord as we come to you today and we lay up before you the Beck family and we say God be merciful to this family that has lost a very young man we ask that you be merciful to them God that you would show yourself real to them that you would show yourself the only one in whom there is respite in the time of a severe emotional storm your word tells us that you are near to the broken hearted so Lord we pray that you would be near to them I pray for my brother Chris Lord I see in his face the brokenness of someone who has lost a loved one a friend and I know his heart hurts today and I pray for him and I ask that you be merciful to him and to his family at the same time Lord I think about that family from yesterday and I think about their terrible loss and Lord how many lost people there were I pray Lord that the gospel that was preached yesterday would go out into their hearts and that they would understand that Jesus is the only one who can save them from their sins Father I thank you for those among us our church members who are able to come back to church today Lord what a blessing it is to look out and see so many faces and know Lord that many of us were separated from each other for a time but now we are here and I thank you for that Father as I think about our church my mind also goes to our nation for Lord we live in a state where we are very thankful for men like our governor who seems to be right thinking in regard to many things and we are grateful for him but Lord we know beyond our state there are many places in our nation where there is not right thinking there is a lot of wrong thinking and Lord when it comes to the decision that was handed down yesterday in regard to the choosing of a new justice for the supreme court Lord we know that in regard to that there is going to be great turmoil almost undoubtedly unless your hand stays it Lord so we do pray that the almighty hand of God would stay the turmoil that you would Lord keep us from death and destruction which undoubtedly will be the desire of many based upon this decision Father we do pray that this woman who has been nominated Lord we we know that if her nomination goes through she will sit in the highest court of the land but there is a court much higher than that one the court of almighty God and every judge who sits on any court in any land in any place will one day stand before the greatest judge of all and have to give an account for how they ruled so I pray oh God that by your mercy that that you would save those people on our court not just Amy Barrett but all of them Lord what a what a what a massive change could occur if those that are in leadership positions and powerful positions would would turn their heart to the Lord but Father we know only you can turn a heart I'm reminded of one of the great reformers who said that often when a when you choose to judge a nation you give wicked rulers oh God and I can't help but see throughout our nation that we do have wicked leaders in many places but we pray for our land we pray there would be repentance we pray there would be a turning and a revival there has been revival before it can happen again oh God we come to you in prayer and we say grant us revival and Father when we think about when we think about the reality of what it takes to have revival we know that it begins in the pulpits so I pray that even today men who have been called to preach would preach the gospel that they would preach the truth of scripture that we would stop being so weak and effeminate but that we would stand up as men and preach the gospel as men preach as dying men to dying people oh God give us the strength and let it begin with us Father I'm reminded of a hymn that says hear our prayer oh Lord incline thine ear to us and grant us thy peace so Lord this is our prayer in Jesus name Amen Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 3 and hold your place at verse 8 while you're turning there I want to make a few preliminary comments in 2015 an article was put out by the Wall Street Journal that stated that hundreds of churches in Europe have closed because attendance in those churches had plunged to near nothing and this has caused many folks to ask well what do we do with these giant buildings that once housed worship services for God well many of those buildings are being turned into well all kinds of things they're being converted into nightclubs some of them are being converted into warehouses some are even being converted into mosques and one in the Netherlands was converted into a skateboard park it's now an indoor skateboard park and this is also happening in the United States according to NPR a centuries old Methodist church was purchased recently so it could be repurposed as a bed and breakfast it's called adaptive reuse they take an old church building they gut the inside and turn it into something else but it still looks like a church on the outside so in both Europe and in the United States where once beautiful houses of worship stood now stand as I said nightclubs warehouses beds and breakfasts and mosques and what this is is this is a visible reminder of a very important truth sin has the power to take something beautiful and make it ugly sin has the power to take something that is intended to glorify God and use it for another purpose and I think that that's what we actually see in the garden what we're going to see today is what once was a beautiful place of communion between God and man is now going to become a courtroom sin is going to take that beautiful place that beautiful sanctuary and turn it into a court of law so with our attention on the text let us stand and read and we're going to read verse 8 all the way to the end to see this take place and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden but the Lord God called to the man and said to him where are you and he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself he said who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat the man said the woman who you gave me to be with me she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate then the Lord God said to the woman what is this that you have done and the woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate the Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this curse it are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field and 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 to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing and pain you shall bring forth children your desire shall be for your husband and 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 curse it is the ground because of you and 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 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 skin and clothed them and the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us and knowing good and evil lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever therefore the Lord God sent him out of 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 and that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life Father in heaven may you grant me mercy as I preach keep me from error give me boldness keep me from cowardice and bless your people and Lord if there are those here who do not know the Lord may this be a day of reckoning for them in Christ's name amen please be seated now you know as well as I do I don't normally read that much text because I don't normally preach that much text but you also know if you've been here we've been going through Genesis verse by verse and I have already preached verses 8 to 13 however I felt the desire to remind you that what we see beginning in verse 14 is based on what happened in verses 8 to 13 and I felt like just jumping into verse 14 would be somewhat of a little premature remember this what we have seen so far in Genesis is three primary scenes we have seen the scene of creation and we that is God creating the world that's chapter one then we've seen the scene which we might call the domestic scene God creates the family he creates man he creates woman he marries the couple and that's what we see in chapter 2 he gives them a place to live he gives them a job to do and he gives them one another to live together in the estate of matrimony so we see creation in chapter 1 we see if you will domestication in chapter 2 but then in chapter chapter 3, we see failure.

In chapter 3, there's the introduction of failure, corruption because of sin.

Now, I want you to think of this and I want you to keep this in your mind today because this is important, not only for the theme of the sermon, but this is actually an important truth regarding the whole of Scripture.

Sin is a legal matter.

People often think of sin as a moral thing and it is, but sin is a legal matter.

God has given a command and He has given a punishment that goes along with that command.

Therefore, God has created a form of a judicial system.

If you do this, you will receive this.

This is the punishment that will accompany this act of transgression and the act has occurred.

And so we see, as I said in my introduction, we see the garden turn into a courtroom and the judge walks onto the scene and everything now changes.

I have a four-part outline today.

If you'll throw that up for me, Ms.

Pam.

What we see in verses 8 to 24 is we see the realization of guilt, we see the interrogation of the guilty, we see the condemnation of the guilty, but then we see the provision for the guilty and that's the part I hope to get to because as I was preaching this sermon to myself, I said, wow, I don't think I'm going to be able to get there, but I don't want to not get to the provision part.

So what I'm going to do, because I spent the last several weeks looking at the first two, I'm going to speed through those so that I can get to the third one.

So you guys ready? You buckled in? Because really we've already looked at the realization of guilt.

That's verses 7 and 8.

In verses 7 and 8, we see the realization.

They realized they were guilty and they felt shame.

They realized they had done wrong and they felt that they had done wrong and they have this shame and so they decide to cover themselves.

They retreat from the presence of God first by trying to cover their nakedness and then when they realize that covering won't do, they run into the trees hoping that somehow the trees will block them from the gaze of Almighty God.

And they run into the trees and they try to find themselves somehow hidden and they heard the voice of the Lord, or they heard rather the sound of the Lord coming in the cool of the day as we talked about last week.

They ran for cover because they knew their coverings were inadequate.

I want to just mention one thing about guilt.

Guilt and shame are not the same.

Guilt is forensic, meaning it is legal.

You're either guilty or you're not.

Somebody would say, I feel guilty.

No, you feel shame.

Shame is the experience.

Guilt is actual.

It's legal.

It's forensic.

When you sin, you are guilty whether you feel guilty or not.

See, God gives us shame to accompany our guilt so that we will recognize that we are guilty and hopefully turn to Him.

You see, shame is not a bad thing.

We always tell people you need to release your shame, get rid of your shame.

In one sense, shame can be bad.

If we are forgiven and we continue to live in shame, that's not good.

But shame is a check on our conscience.

When we are guilty and we feel shame, that's a good thing.

If you're guilty and you don't feel shame, there's something wrong.

So Adam and Eve are guilty and they feel the shame of their guilt and so they try to hide from God.

And that's what we see, the realization of guilt.

In Jim Boyce's commentary, James Montgomery Boyce, he said this is like the arraignment.

What's the purpose of the arraignment in a courtroom? To identify what's happened.

To declare the charges.

Well, the charges have been declared.

They have a command that they have broken.

So God has come.

The judge now comes onto the scene.

What's next? The interrogation.

The first question, what does God ask? Where are you? Now, you would think if Adam were trying to hide from God, he would have not answered.

You ever think about that? God says, where are you? And Adam says, I hid because I was naked.

You think if he was really trying to hide, he wouldn't have answered.

But he did answer.

You understand one thing, and this is important.

When God calls us to his judgment bar, we will not be able to stay hidden.

When God calls us to judgment, we will not be able to stay in the trees.

Here I am.

I hid because I'm naked.

And the second question of interrogation, how do you know that you're naked? Did you eat of the tree of which I told you not to eat? God gives Adam an opportunity for confession.

Adam instead uses it as a moment of self-justification.

This was last week's sermon.

Adam said, the woman whom thou hast given me, she gave me the fruit to eat, and I ate of it.

Remember who he's really pointing the finger at? He's pointing the finger at God.

You gave me this woman.

She was supposed to be a helper.

She was supposed to be my helpmeet.

She was supposed to meet my every need.

Instead, she gave me the fruit of the tree.

It was her fault, but it was really your fault, God.

And that doesn't work with God.

God looks at the woman.

She says, oh, the devil made me do it.

So at this moment, God turns his attention to the guilty trio.

And God lays down three statements of judgment on these three guilty parties.

And I have to think this.

If you notice, I talked about the pattern of judgment last week.

First he talked to Adam, then he talked to Eve, then he judged the serpent, then he judged Eve, then he judged Adam, and there's that sort of pattern there.

I think that when God judged the serpent, I think Adam and Eve were going, like, like, you know, okay, we passed the puck, right? Because Adam points to Eve, Eve points to the serpent, and God says to the serpent, here's your judgment.

And this is Eve's, okay, and then he turns it to the woman.

And at that moment, I imagine Adam is still kind of going, okay, all right, I'm still not, I'm still, oh, and to the man, he says.

He didn't get out of it.

It started with questioning him, and it ends with judging him.

And what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at the three judgments that are given.

And this is really the heart of the sermon.

This is where I spent most of my time in preparation.

And I want to say this is probably the most difficult portion of this chapter, maybe even the most difficult portion of Genesis that we've come to so far, because there are some, there is some language here, and there are some things that happen here that are difficult to really understand exactly what it's saying.

So I'm going to, I'm going to help to try to give you the understanding that I've come to.

But there are times when I'm going to say I'm not necessarily dogmatic, because I do think that this does provide a few difficult statements.

But overall, we can't miss the main part of the narrative, and that is that God the judge is standing before these three guilty parties, and no one gets away from their responsibilities.

They all bear the punishment for their guilt.

Don't miss that part.

Don't miss the forest for the trees.

This is God the judge.

See, how many people do you know that will tell you God is too good to judge? It's the very fact that God is good that He does judge.

It is the goodness of God that should cause us to truly be, to truly shudder before Him, because it is the goodness of God that reminds us that He will judge right.

He will not simply wink at sin, but He will judge sin as it deserves.

I don't know how anybody can read the Bible and say God won't judge sin.

It's right here in the very third chapter.

The first time sin is introduced, God doesn't say, oh, you guys get a mulligan.

You know, you get a, you get a, you get a, that was your one, that was your one mistake.

You know, it was okay.

We'll start again.

No, there's no, there's no do over.

There's no second chance.

God brings judgment.

And we begin with the judgment on the serpent.

Look at verse 14.

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, between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

What we see here in the judgment of the serpent is we see a physical judgment on the physical serpent, but we also have to be reminded that there is a spiritual being who is behind this, Satan himself.

We know this from Genesis 12, Genesis 21.

It tells us that Satan was actually the one who possessed the serpent.

And so there is a physical judgment and then there is a spiritual judgment.

And this is where I say it starts to get a little bit complicated because I do think that there is some, there is some of it that we can at least see as there's sort of a, not a mixing over, but sort of a blending of the judgment.

I'll explain what I mean.

Notice first that the serpent is now going to take on a different characteristic, a different physical characteristic.

It says that because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go.

You know the snake is the only animal that slithers.

It doesn't have legs and it doesn't stand up because it doesn't have any legs upon which to stand.

And so when we see a snake, don't you, do snakes creep you all out? Isn't one of the reasons, and I know some of you guys like snakes and God bless you.

I'm just going to pray for you because that's just, but the snake has the oddest method of mobility.

It doesn't reach out.

It doesn't step out.

It, it, it coils and expands and it coils and expands and that's how it moves.

It's got this very odd mode of, of moving from place to place.

And we look at that and we say, how strange an animal this is.

But this text seems to indicate that that's not the way it was created.

The text seems to indicate that there was some kind of mode of transportation that the snake had prior to the fall.

Now some people try to argue that the snake maybe had legs and I've even seen some scientists, Christian scientists that try to argue that there's actually places among the snake's vertebrae where legs could have existed at one point.

Some, some people of course use that as an evolutionary argument.

Some people use that as a creationary argument.

My answer is, I don't know.

Brother Mike and I have talked about this text at length and I love brother Mike because we, we spend so much time on the phone.

I'm glad we don't have to pay for minutes anymore.

You know, cell phones, we just have to pay for minutes because we, we, we would both be way out of money.

But we talk about this text and, and he mentioned like a skink has sort of a slithering way but it still has legs and perhaps the snake had legs and part of the judgment was the removing of that.

Now you're just going to slither like on your belly.

That's possible.

I've also heard some who say, well perhaps the, perhaps the serpent never had legs but what it had was the ability to be upright like a cobra.

You've seen a cobra when it goes to strike.

It comes up onto its tail and it pushes off and some people say maybe it wasn't that it had legs and God removed legs.

Maybe it was a, maybe it had a stronger rear and a stronger tail and it was able to move with a certain, still serpentine but yet upright form.

What's the answer? I don't know.

I don't know.

I know this.

When the judgment came, it was prostrate, face down, on your belly.

You're going to be now on your belly and that's how you're going to move.

That's part of the judgment.

And we say, okay, that makes sense.

But what about this whole eating dust thing? It says dust you shall eat.

If there's one thing I know, pastor, I've been to the zoo and I have, snakes eat mice and snakes eat other snakes but snakes don't eat dirt.

Snakes don't eat dust.

This is a scientific inaccuracy in the Bible.

Well this is where I think we have to interpret the Bible according to what's known as the phenomenological language or the language of appearance.

And the language of appearance is like when we say the sun comes up.

Well the sun doesn't actually come up.

The earth rotates and that's why the sun looks like it comes up.

And I think that what we have here is the judgment on the serpent is you're going to have your face in the dirt all the time.

Not that you're literally digesting dust all the time but you're literally going to have your face in it all the time.

And this term to eat dust is actually found throughout the scripture as a statement of defeat.

To eat dust was a statement of being the defeated one.

And we still use this today.

Eat my dust, right? When we go run or we say, oh man, he bit the dust.

Then there's another one bites the dust, right? It means that he's defeated.

So it can have that sort of understanding of it.

It's not that he's really eating the dust but by having his face down in the dust, it's showing his defeat.

Now here's where the big question comes in.

The big question is this.

Why punish the snake? He was a vessel.

It'd be like you driving too fast in your car and the police officer takes a bat and just beats your car up.

Like the car didn't do anything.

I'm the one who chose to drive fast.

The car was just the vessel.

I'm not going to ask you if you ever thought about doing that Adam.

But you know the vessel itself we don't punish.

We punish the mind behind the vessel, right? A snake is an unintelligent creature.

Even in the garden they didn't have intellect and emotion and will like what would take to have this conversation.

We know the serpent is possessed by the devil.

And so here we have the devil.

Why punish the snake? I must tell you it's a difficult question and the best answer I have come up with is that when Satan took on the serpent and possessed the serpent, there were consequences for the vessel that accompanied it as a reminder.

I'll give you a good thought on this.

Later we're going to see that when Adam sinned, the ground was cursed.

The ground didn't do anything wrong.

But the ground is cursed as a reminder of the spiritual curse.

And so I think the curse on the serpent stands as a reminder of the spiritual curse that came upon the devil.

So every time you see a snake, you're reminded Satan used this tool as his weapon against mankind.

And God brought judgment upon the serpent as a picture of the ultimate judgment which was on Satan.

And the ultimate judgment on Satan is actually in verse 15.

The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.

That's not just talking about stomping the heads of snakes even though that's a figurative way of understanding it.

That's talking about when Jesus Christ came on the cross and crushed the head of the serpent and turned over the work that he had done in the garden.

And next week that's going to be the sermon.

Because next week we're going to stop everything and just look at verse 15.

Because verse 15 is what's known as the Proto-Evangelium or Latin for the first proclamation of the gospel.

The first proclamation of the gospel is this.

The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.

And we're going to see that more next week.

So let's move on.

So we've seen the judgment on the serpent is both physical and spiritual.

Now we see the judgment on the woman and we see that it regards relationships.

First the relationship to childbearing.

That's a physical judgment.

And then the relationship to husband which is an emotional judgment.

Let's look first at the relationship to childbearing.

I have to take a sip of water.

I've got a lot to say today.

This is a big text.

He says, to the woman I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing.

In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be for your husband and you shall rule over him.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

Let's look first at the childbearing part.

Prior to the fall, no children were born.

There are no proto-lapsarian children or pre-lapsarian.

Pre-lapsarian means before the fall.

There are no pre-lapsarian children.

Only people that exist prior to the fall are Adam and Eve.

So we don't know what birth would have been like had there not been sin.

But my assumption is it would have been a joyous experience devoid of pain.

However, I know now that I have, having been in three birthing rooms, that it ain't that way no more.

Childbirth is a tremendously difficult experience.

Any woman who has been through it knows that that's true.

And I think an argument can be made that this goes beyond just childbirth because it references pain in childbearing and pain in bringing forth children.

I think that there's also a sense in which not only will there be pain in the physical act of childbirth, there's pain in raising children.

It's one sinner raising a little baby sinner who's going to grow up to be a child sinner and then he's going to grow up to be an adult sinner.

You're going to have this relationship, you're going to make sinners, and they're going to behave like sinners.

And they're going to be subject to the corruption of sin.

This is why we have miscarriages.

This is why we have infant mortality and SIDS.

This is why we have child cancer and death and disease.

All of these are products of sin.

And think of the heart-wrenching pain experienced particularly by the mother in all of this.

In pain shall you give birth and in pain shall you bear.

I think this is showing that sin is more than just it's going to make it harder to push the baby out of the birth canal.

But then we get to the really harder one.

I think that one is pretty self-explanatory.

Even if we just limit it to just the physical pain at birth, that one's fairly straightforward.

The second one is so difficult, I have to say I have read so many commentaries on the latter part of verse 16 that I could literally give you six different options as possibilities as to what it means.

All of them I think potentially true or not.

And I'm not saying I don't have a thought on the subject, but I am saying it's not as easy as it may come across.

And I want to give you what the argument, what the issue is.

You see, if you read in the ESV, and what I found this morning, you know what, I don't use this.

This is my Bible for preaching, but this is not my Bible for study.

I leave it here and I use this when I'm here.

But my Bible for study is on my desk and it's a different edition of the ESV.

This reads differently.

Did you notice, Brother Mike? I know you did because we've been talking about this word for two weeks and I didn't look at this Bible and see if it corresponded because I forgot this is a different edition.

The ESV has gone through several editions.

This is a different edition.

And if you have an ESV Bible, look at me, look with me at verse 16 because it says in verse 16, your desire shall be for your husband.

But in some of your translations, it says your desire will be contrary to your husband.

Who has contrary? You have a different edition of the ESV.

That's wild.

But you notice there, there's a superscript, right? The superscript is that little number.

And that number takes you down to the bottom.

In this version, the superscript says against, but in yours, it says toward your husband, right? In the superscript, if it says contrary, it's so weird that one says it one way, it's like you got two.

I thought the translations would at least agree on this.

Apparently they don't.

And I'm learning this on the fly.

But the point of the matter is, the question is this.

Will her desire be for her husband? Or will her desire be against her husband? Will her desire be to cling to him? Or will her desire be to rule over him? That's the argument, right? Some people will take you to Genesis 4, and in Genesis 4, the same word is used.

And it says, sin desires to have you.

And in the ESV, one of the translations says sin is contrary, sin's desire is contrary to you.

It's so weird that they add that word in.

Anyway, the point of the matter is this.

What is it trying to say? Well, I think it has to be balanced with the next part.

Because whatever it's saying about her desire, whether her desire is to rule him, or whether her desire is to cling to him, and there is a Song of Solomon verse that uses that word desire, which means to draw near.

So it can be that.

The issue is his ruling over her.

Because ultimately, what is happening in the fall is, I would say, an exacerbation, but maybe a better word would simply be an exaggeration, of the headship of the man.

You remember the man always had a position of leadership.

Even in chapter 2, he was the husband, she was the wife.

He was created first, she was created second.

He had the position to work and keep the garden, she was created to do what? To be his helper in working and keeping the garden.

So there was already a position of headship, and now this position of headship somehow is going to experience a form of corruption.

Some people think the woman is going to rule over her husband, and he is going to rule over her, and this is going to create this ultimate sense of grudge between the two.

And I can see how they can come up with that, because I've seen a lot of marriages where the wife just wanted to rule over her husband.

Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen the opposite though? Where the man just totally dominated his wife? So we see both, right? And I've seen women who didn't have a desire to rule over their husbands, and I've seen husbands that ultimately were submissive to their wives.

I will say this, throughout human history there has been a basic pattern, and the basic pattern is that men have dominated women, because of physical strength, and typically a difference in personality.

Men have a tendency to have the personality of dominance, not always, but in general.

And we see this, I think, as the example of this is what will happen.

There will be this ruling of the man over the woman.

In Genesis 2, they had a position of headship that was fully mutual, fully loving, fully committed, and there was no...

there was unity.

Now that unity is going to be interrupted, somehow.

Now that unity is going to experience a time of genuine and hard disunity.

Whether she desires him and he rules over her, or she desires to rule and he rules back, there's something that has been introduced now.

What do we have in Christ that is supposed to be the change of that? The call in Ephesians 5.

Husbands do what? Love your wives.

And wives do what? It doesn't say love your husband, it says respect your husband.

You know why women are called to respect their husband and not love? Because she does have a role in the house to respect the position that he is in.

And why is he called to love her? Because in his role as head, he must be a loving head to his wife as Christ is to the church.

So there is here in Genesis 3 a difficult thing to understand, but we see in Christ what we could say is the answer to the issue.

Whatever the issue may be, we have a way to be, as it were, redeemed when we come to Christ and husbands love your wives.

Let me tell you this, if you use Genesis 3.16 as a reason to mistreat your wife, then you have absolutely, absolutely misunderstood the text.

If you say, well I am allowed to rule over you, it says right here that is part of the curse.

You have not, because as I said, yes the curse includes this dominating relationship, but in Christ we are redeemed.

And in Christ we are called to love our wives as Christ loves the church.

There is a lot more I could get into.

The Septuagint gives a little help on this.

The Septuagint reads like this, thy submission shall be to thy husband, he shall rule over thee.

And I think that is the balance.

I think the Septuagint helps.

But ultimately, in the end, what we see is we see a judgment upon the woman, we see a judgment upon the serpent, and now we come to the judgment on the man.

This one is the longest, it goes through several verses, but really it is fairly straight forward.

It says in verse 17, 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.

I do want to point one thing out.

Notice that God reminds Adam of what he did.

He didn't really do that with Eve and the serpent so clearly.

He says here, not only did you eat of the tree, but you listened to your wife.

You listened to somebody other than me.

I told you on the day you ate of this, you shall surely die.

The serpent said, no you won't.

Your wife repeated that, and you listened to them rather than me.

The genuine failure of Adam is all over the place.

I was talking to Lori and I were talking about this this morning.

Adam failed by not protecting his wife.

Adam failed by allowing the serpent in the garden.

But Adam also failed by listening to somebody say God's word isn't true, and he believed it.

I will say this to you.

The biggest danger in the world right now is not political.

It's not socio-economic.

The biggest danger right now is there's people who are preaching this word who don't believe it.

I may tell you I don't understand everything in this book, but it's true.

And it is not dependent on my understanding.

It is not dependent on my ability to wax eloquently about Hebrew and Greek.

It's going to be true regardless of whether I stand or fall.

Eve told him, the serpent told me, God's a liar.

And Adam believed it.

So God reminds him, because you have listened to the voice of your wife.

And eaten of the tree 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.

No longer will Adam eat from the abundant fruit of the garden.

Now he will wrestle with the ground for his sustenance.

The sweat of his brow and his calloused and bleeding hands would serve as a reminder of his failure.

I do want to make an important note.

In the same way that headship is not part of the fall, but a perversion of headship, work is not a part of the fall either.

Some people say, oh, we get to heaven, we're just going to sit on clouds and strum harps and we're going to do nothing.

Wouldn't that be awful? If you didn't have anything to do in heaven, but sit on a cloud and strum a harp and eat grapes or whatever people imagine? No, the garden was a place of joyful vocation.

Did you know there is such a thing as joyful vocation? To enjoy what you do and do it without being broken down by it? Adam had joyful vocation in the garden, to work and keep the garden.

He had a good job and he never tired and he never bled and he never bruised and he never calloused.

Somebody asked the other day, did Adam need shoes in the garden? I said, I don't think so.

One, because he was naked, but I said, but I think the terrain of the garden was plush and there was no need for a rubber sole to protect him.

Why do we wear boots to work? Because work is hard on our feet and the older I get, the more my knees hurt and the more my ankles hurt and the balls of my feet begin to get sore because I'm carrying around a lot of weight and every time I step it's pounding on the ground.

So Adam has to now experience this.

When he goes to cultivate the ground, it's not going to always cooperate.

If you've ever been a farmer or worked with people who try to grow food, you know sometimes the ground is very cooperative and sometimes the ground fights back and sometimes it doesn't want to do what you want it to do and sometimes it doesn't seem like it's getting the nourishment it needs or the sunlight it needs or the water it needs and it's a constant battle and it's a constant struggle.

Now Adam is going to experience this struggle.

I want to just point out to you, we don't have to go there, but in Romans chapter 8, Paul reminds us that the ground itself, what happened? Is everything okay? Did we lose power? Don't worry about it.

Alright, so Paul reminds us that the ground itself is yearning for redemption.

Now that's what we call personification because the ground doesn't have a brain, the ground doesn't truly have emotions, but he says all creation is yearning like a woman in childbirth for the redemption of the earth.

This is Romans 8, 19-23.

The earth is experiencing a curse and then we see the most, I think the most important part of the judgment is verse 19.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.

For out of it, that is out of the ground, you were taken and out of, excuse me, and to the dust you shall return.

You are dust.

Adam, you are dust.

You were made from earthly elements, now because of sin you will return to those elements.

You've heard this said at funerals.

Ashes to ashes, what? Dust to dust.

That's from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

God said you will die.

On the day that you eat of this you will die.

Now I did have, I had a great question last week.

Zoe came to me after service and I want to thank you, Zoe, it was a very good question.

She said Pastor Keith, he said he was going to die that day but he didn't die that day.

I said that's a very good question.

That's a question that even theologians and scholars have wrestled with.

How do we understand the fact that God said on this day you will die and he didn't die that day? And I said there's really, we have to understand this first from the perspective of the spiritual because there are both physical and spiritual judgments.

And in a spiritual sense Adam did die the very moment he ate.

Because in the very moment he ate there was a spiritual separation between him and God.

And just like in Ephesians 2 it says we're born dead and you're dead in your trespasses and sins.

As soon as Adam ate he was separated from God and he was under God's judgment.

Therefore there was a spiritual death that he was experiencing.

But also the moment he ate he began to be subject to physical death and the promise that he would die would eventually come true.

He would die.

930 years after he ate of the fruit he died.

So the promise of God did ultimately come true.

He died on that day spiritually.

He died physically.

He began to die physically that day and he would eventually his body would catch up with his spirit.

But this is what brings us to the last part and it really does and I know I'm over time.

I'm going to tell you a secret.

I have this timer.

It quit working.

I thought I was at 30 minutes and had plenty of time.

I've probably been going for like an hour.

So I'm sorry.

So I'll bring it to a close.

Because I do want to point this last thing out.

The provision for the guilty.

Look at verse 20 to 24.

1.

What's the first provision for the guilty? Life will continue.

He calls his wife Eve.

Why? Because she's the mother of all living.

Life will go on.

That's faith.

By naming his wife Eve he expresses faith in the fact that life's going to continue.

God is going to be gracious.

God covers them in verse 21 with skins.

That's a picture of atonement.

That's God's grace.

So this is a provision of grace in the midst of judgment.

But the last thing is God kicks them out of the garden.

And you say, how is that gracious? Because there is grace in excommunication.

How is there grace in excommunication? If God would have allowed them to live and partake of the tree of life, they would have continued to live in sin forever.

God does not want us to live in sin forever.

God does not want us to live.

Can you imagine having to live this life forever? With all the pains and all the struggles and it's just going to get worse and worse and worse and you're going to be like this forever? No, we yearn for redemption.

We yearn for, to be fixed.

We yearn to be completed.

This can't be what's forever.

You ever heard somebody say this world's so bad it's like it's under a curse? It is.

And the curse is going to be redeemed.

One day you're going to get a new body.

One day you're going to have a new heaven and a new earth.

One day everything will be back and better than it was before.

But until that day you cannot eat of the tree of life and live like this.

Excommunication is an act of grace.

God sets them out of the garden to protect them from eating of that tree and living in sin forever.

But another tree would come.

Many thousand years later a tree would be planted in Jerusalem.

Not really planted but buried and upon it would hang the Son of God.

And that tree would be the new tree of life.

And Jesus said, if I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself.

You see when Jesus was lifted up he became the new tree of life.

And how do we have redemption? Look upon the Son and believe.

We go to the Son and we believe.

We repent of our sins and we trust in his ultimate provision.

There is a tree of life for us.

We have not been excommunicated from it.

We've been called to come to it.

Come to the tree.

Come to Christ and live.

So my call to you today is if you have not come to Christ, come today.

The Bible says today is the day of salvation.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your truth.

And I thank you that even in the midst of judgment there was grace.

Father, oh God, how merciful you are, how gracious you are.

Lord, may it be that we, if we are believers, that we experience anew and afresh the sense of your grace.

But if there are non-believers here, Lord, that they would come running to the tree of life that is Jesus Christ.

He said, I am the vine, you are the branches.

He said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me.

He said, I am the bread come down from heaven.

Lord, may we see him as he truly is.

And it is in his name we pray.

Amen.

Every week we have an opportunity to respond to the preaching of the word by receiving of the elements of the Lord's Supper.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, while we sing this song, I encourage you to come.

I encourage you to come and partake of the bread and of the cup and take it back to your seat.

And then one of our elders is going to come and is going to lead us in a short devotion before we partake.

But I will say this, if you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and this table has not been set for you, but ask yourself why, what is it that's keeping you from the tree of life? You say you do it all in hope that I might know.

You slay me.

I will bless your name.

Oh, you will.

Still I will.

You slay me.

You slay me.

Still I will bless you.

Sing this song.

You slay me.

Bless your name.

Sing this song.

Sing this song.