Martial Problems, The Curse & The Protoevangelium (Genesis Chapter Three - Part 3)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. It might not be a satisfactory answer to you, but it is the answer. Why do people suffer? Genesis 3.

The Fall, Human Blame, and Adam’s Headship

Why do people experience marital problems? When did that begin? Genesis chapter 3. When did people start blaming God for everything? Genesis chapter 3. What does Adam do? He blames his wife. And not just that, don't miss this, Adam blames God.

It'd be easy to kind of not see that, but look at verse 12. So God asked him the question, and what does Adam say? Well, the woman, so he's blaming her, but the woman that you gave me. The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.

This has played out throughout history. This is the way it is. People blame God. They blame each other. And again, the proper response is you're right, God. I'm wrong. Please forgive me. It's that simple, but that's not what people do.

Now here's the question. Why was it Adam's fault? Because God really, he goes to Adam first. He's calling Adam to account. Some of you have read this and probably asked this. Eve, who ate first? Eve did, right?

Eve ate first. She then gave it to Adam. I mean, it would seem as though Eve is really the one responsible, and yet God calls Adam on the carpet. Why? Because Adam has headship. Adam has headship. This is an unpopular thing today.

People complain about it and they call it the patriarchy. It doesn't matter what they say. That's what the Bible says. Adam has headship. He's the head of the wife and he's the head of the human race.

God gave the commandment, again, to who? He gave it to Adam, not Eve. Of course, with that comes responsibility. If you want to call this a covenant, God made it with Adam and not Eve. So God calls Adam to account, but instead of confessing his sin, he makes excuses.

You know, it's always somebody else's fault, and isn't this the way? All the time, all the things that are going on, no, it's always someone else's fault. Let's get the focus off of me and someone else.

When someone brings something up, yeah, but what about this? Yeah, what about that person? No, what about you and what you did? That's the common human experience. So God then turns to Eve. Eve was wrong.

Eve did do something wrong. So now God is calling her to account and he asked, what is this that you have done? And again, instead of confessing to God, she keeps the blame game going, doesn't she? And the woman said, well, the serpent, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

The Curse on the Serpent and the Promise of the Seed

So verse 14, the Lord God said to the serpent. Now the joke is the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on, right? That's really not true. He did have a leg to stand on because as of this moment, the serpent walked upright.

It's part of the curse that he would go on his belly and eat the dust of the earth. Just spend a moment on that. How does that work? How would a serpent walk upright? And people have this in their mind of a snake just kind of, I don't know, just walking.

I don't think that's the way it was, has been suggested that a serpent with legs or a reptile with legs is called a dragon. The Bible talks about dragons and it's not the Walt Disney type of a dragon that you think of in your mind.

Some people, this might have been the dinosaurs or what people would call the dinosaurs. But a serpent that walks upright is a dragon. You know, this makes sense because in those passages from Revelation that call the devil, the serpent of old, those same passages call him what?

The dragon. So the physical serpent gets punished. He must go on his belly. Now the spiritual serpent is punished. Look at verse 15. This is the most important verse of the whole chapter because it's the verse that first gives the hint of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Lord says to the serpent, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. So now there's going to be this hostility. Satan is the avowed enemy of mankind. And while the term seed of the woman can refer to every human being, even verse 20 is called the mother of all the living.

It prophetically speaks of Christ. This is the first promise of the Savior in the Bible. The Lord says to Satan, he, the seed of the woman, which could be a veiled reference to the virgin birth. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

So you think of Jesus, here's the serpent on the ground. Jesus crushes the head of the, and then, ow, that hurt. He got this heel wound, which is a reference to the cross. So when Jesus died on the cross, he suffered on the cross.

Yeah, but he rose again. So it's not full and final, but the serpent, another story, the serpent's head is crushed. Romans chapter 16, verse 20 says, and the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.

Isn't it a great thing to know that the devil is a defeated foe? You say, well, he has all this influence in my life. It doesn't have to be that way. The devil is a defeated foe. If we walk in the spirit, we can get victory over the devil and his temptation.

So in the process, Christ will suffer this bruised heel, a reference to his suffering and death on the cross. But the devil will be destroyed. Jesus rules and reigns forever. Amen. What happens to the serpent?

He's cast into the lake of fire where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever. The punishment of the woman is what? So the devil, he gets punished, and now there is a punishment for the woman.

The Curse on Childbirth and the Struggle in Marriage

And the punishment, the main punishment is she will experience pain in childbirth. And some of you ladies know all about that. What should be the most joyful event in your life, and it is, I'm sure, but it's a really, really difficult one.

It's a really painful one. But there's another part of the curse that her desire, it says, shall be for her husband. But the Lord says he shall rule over you. So that's technically part of the curse as well.

Pastor John MacArthur says this about verse 16. The woman's desire will be to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design. So the way it's supposed to be, the way it was originally, God created the woman to be Adam's helper.

They were to work together and be on the same team, on the same page. But that's not the way marriage is after the fall. Marriage turns into a power struggle where the woman wants to be the one in charge.

This is why the Bible portrays Sarah as the ideal picture of a Christian woman. Because in 1 Peter 3, 6, that's where Sarah called her husband Abraham what? Sarah called Abraham Lord. And some of you ladies are like, well, I'm not quite there yet.

Wives, submit to your own husbands. Not the most popular verse in the New Testament. Don't get mad at me, but women fail in this area. Women fail. Of course, men fail as well. Men fail to lead. One of the biggest problems in this country is you have a bunch of weak men.

Weak men who follow the pattern of Adam and they just simply go along with whatever their wife says, whatever their wife does. Here, honey, eat this forbidden fruit. Okay. Isn't that what happened? Yes, dear.

Okay. And isn't that almost the universal advice that people give to men? In order to have a happy marriage, you need to learn two words. Yes, dear. Just do what she says. Happy wife, happy life. What about happy husband, happy life?

What about that? But this is the power struggle, right? We laugh at that stuff, but it really is part of the curse. And here's the thing. The woman is not going to be happy. This is generally speaking.

This isn't true for everybody. But what the Lord is saying, your desire will be for your husband. She's not going to be happy until she's the one in charge. But then once she is in charge, she's not happy then either because that's not God's design for her.

God designed man to lead and to work and to protect the family. The woman, her design, generally speaking, is to keep the home and to raise the children, especially when they are young and in the house.

The Curse on the Ground and the Reality of Suffering

And, of course, the man, as we talked about last time, he finds his purpose. Now we're moving to the man, the punishment for the man. Man finds his purpose in his work. But now his work is cursed. Look at verse 17.

Then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

What was Adam's original job? He was like a gardener, right? A farmer, maybe you could say. Well, now the ground is cursed. He says, Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat of the herb of the field.

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. That's the curse for the man. So we get it, right?

Life is going to be hard. Life includes a lot of pain and a lot of suffering. But going back to the original question, Why do people suffer? Why do bad things happen? My question would be, based on all of this, Why would we expect anything different?

I mean, honestly, when bad things happen, Why should we expect anything different? And I'm not saying you should get up in the morning with this mindset and think, Okay, what's going to go wrong today?

I think we should try to remain positive, but we also need to be realistic. We live in a fallen world. That's the way that it is. And in this chapter we see the reason for it. But God didn't do it, remember that.

God did not do it. Man did. God is not the problem. Rebellion against God is the problem. And it has a ripple effect to where now we're experiencing the things we are today. Why is there suffering? Why wouldn't there be when all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God?

And just one last comment on a large scale. Look at how mankind, especially in this country and the western world, look at how we are spitting in the face of God. The fact that God hasn't done to us what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah is a testament to the Lord's long-suffering and mercy.

So you think, well, things are really bad. They could be a whole lot worse. There's a lot of people that suffer. And I can't explain the little kid who gets cancer and the good people that we would say, This is a really good person.

Why did they go through all this? Well, this rotten person has it so good. We don't have all the facts. I can't give all the answers. But here's what I know. God is up there. He has done something. He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sin.

When Jesus returns, he's going to set everything right. So the pain, the suffering, for the Christian, it's only temporary. As the scripture says, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Moores Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, moorescornickchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.