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” (Genesis 3:17). Scripture is its own best interpreter, and in the thorns and thistles of verse 18 we see from Jesus parable of the weeds and the wheat, that is was an enemy (Satan) that sowed the weeds. It was “while man slept” that this happened (Matthew 13:24. 25).  I'm reminded of the saying “in order for evil to triumph, all that needs to happen is that good men do nothing.” Adam was essentially asleep  when he just “let her slide,” took the “easy” way out, and “heeded the voice of his wife.” There is a spirit of slumber, and it involves spiritual eyes that don't see,  and spiritual ears that don't hear (Romans 11:8). It describe the Church in the West that has not “watched and prayed” (Mark 13:33).

Other translations of this morning's verse have “because of you,” rather than “for your sake.” Both are possible from the Hebrew, illustrating the difficulty of translation.  “Because of you,” is purely punitive, while “for your sake,” indicates a redemptive aspect of the sentence. We reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7), and the pain and the sorrow are designed to lead us to repentance. That the redemptive version is the correct one,  is born out in Romans 8:20 which reads “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope.” If it is just punishment, there is no hope, but it was subjected in hope! Ultimately Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, but I am getting ahead of myself!

Unlike Adam,  God takes responsibility for the curse, and for allowing the tempter access to creation.  Perhaps there was  conversation in heaven of God with the Devil that was similar to that where God allowed Satan to test Job (Job 1, 2). But in any case, with  Adam's sin, the door was opened up for the war in heaven to be transferred to earth, and the Devil cast down here (Revelation 12:7, 9).  Adam's formerly had dominion (1:26), but with the fall it is  given to the enemy, the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

From henceforth the struggle between good and evil will show up in every aspect of life. Bringing forth life, be it physical or spiritual will involve pain and sorrow, but also joy. Thorns and thistles will grow up apparently spontaneously among seed sown on good ground.  Satisfaction in labour will only come by “the sweat of your brow,” and the struggle will be “all the days of your life.” Finally at the end of the day,  you will die (2:17; 3:19).  Evolution can describe this struggle, but it has no explanation for it. There is both something good and beautiful about creation, but there is also something broken. Only  the Bible has an explanation for  this reality (1:31; 3:17).

Father, we can either see life without hope as in “life sucks and then you die,” or we can embrace  redemption and hope through the frustration. Creation declares the glory of God and speaks to us clearly of Your eternal power and Godhead; so that we are without excuse (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20). Help us who know You Lord to live as living parables of Your hope in Jesus Name Amen

Your desire shall be for your husband,

and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16b).  As I said last day the gospel is God's vehicle for overturning the curse and bringing in the Kingdom, and Kingdom relationships in particular. In light of the current war between the sexes, where we have the woman wanting to dominate the man, perhaps this morning verse is simply a description of post fall reality (rather than eternally mandated)! In the  fullness of the  Kingdom there are no injustices. In the Kingdom there  “is neither  slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one (equal) in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).  And the yeast of the gospel is, and has been at work to make this a reality! 

Part of this is the abolition of slavery. It was William Wilberforce's Christian conviction that lead him to make it his life long goal to enshrine abolition in British Law. In America it was far more violent, but again was based on Christian ideals. What I am saying,  is that the abolition of slavery was there in seed form, waiting for the right time to make it a reality. Today,  nobody is advocating slavery,  but lets not pretend the situation is fully resolved.  

The needed emancipation of women is also there in seed form in Scripture,  waiting for the yeast of the gospel to permeate it. Many don't realize that is it only within the formerly dominant influence of Judaeo-Christain ethic in the West where the start of this emancipation would even have been possible. You only have to look at other parts of the world to see that this is true. But we have not always used Kingdom methods or principles, and bitterness has often rulled!

Another of the seeds of equality is found in 1 Corinthians 11:11, where we read “neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord.” A couple of modern buzz words come to mind,  interdependence and co-dependence. I recommend a related internet article by Jodi Clarke. Interdependence  is more mature than independence, and is characterized by healthy boundaries,  active listening, time for personal interest, clear communication, taking personal responsibility for behaviours,  creating safety for each other to be vulnerable, engaging and responding to each other, healthy self-esteem and being open and approachable with each other (Clarke).  To me, it sounds like Adam and Eve before the fall!   

In the advancement of the Kingdom it's often two steps forward one step back. The Kingdom methods of Wilberforce and Martin Luther King are not in evidence at the moment,  as the kingdom of darkness seem (but only seems) to have the upper hand. In the war between the sexes there is either dominance or co-dependence.  Codependent relationships  include things like poor boundaries, people-pleasing, reactivity, unhealthy ineffective communication, manipulation,  difficulty with emotional intimacy, control,  blame, low self-esteem,  no personal interests or goals outside the relationship (Clarke). To me it sounds like fig leaves and the orphan spirit  (Genesis 3:7; John 14:8),

Lord Jesus thank You that You promised You would not leave us as orphans, but that You would send Your Spirit,  and He would implant in our hearts the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry out Abba, Daddy,  Father (John 14:18  Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15). We cannot bring in the Kingdom Lord, when we don't know who we are in You.  And we wont know who we are in You unless we totally surrender and walk in Your light. Forgive us Lord and help us to do this daily in Your precious Name Amen

 To the woman he said .

“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). To see the deeper meaning here,  we need to see in the sorrow and the conception of this curse,  a parable of what it means to bring  the life of the Kingdom.  Jesus rebuked  “the teacher of Israel,” because he didn't understand  becoming a Christian is a new birth (John 3:5, 10).  Paul understood that the process would be painful when,  fearing the Galatians had regressed,  he addressed them  as “My little children, for whom I labour in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

This side of the fall almost everything that God births is painful. If you know your history you'll know the prophesied rebirth of Israel  is a case in point (Isaiah 66:8). It was birthed in war!  Jesus told us “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that new life has been born  (John 16:21).  Leading up to Israel's declaration of independence 14 May 1948 there was great turmoil, but on that night,  there was dancing in the streets!  And there is coming a day when creation itself will be redeemed.  But until then “the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs.” However when the Kingdom fully comes, there will be “everlasting joy” (Romans 8:21, 22;  Isaiah 35:10).

Certainly God knew the fall would happen, and His solution Christ,  the hope of the Word,  was slain outside of time before the creation of the World (Revelation 13:8). When Christ came, He told us “The Kingdom is at hand.” It is here, but not yet in its fullness, it's like yeast that (takes time to) work its way through the whole lump” (Mark 1:15; Matthew 13:33).

There are many injustices in the World, and God is a God of Justice (Isiah 30:18).  But it takes time and tribulation for the yeast of the gospel of Kingdom to work its way through. Tribulation often comes as mankind tries to promote justice outside kingdom principles using force and the weapons of the world. When we do this,  too often those who were oppressed become the oppressors. So many times its  one step forward two steps back.   Before the fall Adam and Eve were comparable to one another (Genesis 2:18 NKJV),  the man did not rule over the woman. The before the fall relationships,  are a picture of Kingdom relationships, and the gospel is God's method of overturning the curse and bringing in the Kingdom. I believe the abolition of slavery and  its aftermath, and the emancipation of women and its aftermath,  are things that God has birthed,  is birthing and will continue birth,  as with our cooperation He brings Kingdom come to earth.

Father, it seems to be part of human nature that we are either two steps ahead of You or four steps behind. Consequently, there is no joy! You have a timing for these things Lord, and You want us to use Kingdom principles and Kingdom methods. When we don't we don't bring in the Kingdom, we merely create more divisions that need to be healed. Forgive us Lord, please give us Grace to do things in Your way,  and in Your timing.  We pray Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven in Jesus Name Amen

So the LORD God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle ... And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:14, 15). There's no interrogation here,  as there was with Adam and Eve.  This was not the serpent's (Satan's Revelation 12:9) first transgression. He had sinned from the beginning (1 John 3:8). There would be no redemption for him   (Calvin)! He is sentenced to crawl on his belly and eat dust, a sign of disgrace (verse 14b).

There was to be enmity (open hostility) between him and the woman  representing the whole of humanity.  God loves, Satan hates!   Jesus spoke of those who opposed Him,  that they were of their father the devil (John 8:44).  The seed then  (offspring) of the serpent are those who,  either by default,  or deliberately follow Satan and his rule.  The Seed here  (upper case “s”) is  primarily Christ (Galatians 3:16), but also represents believers born of Him  (John 3:5; 1:12).

Christ then shall bruise the serpents head, but the serpent  shall bruise His heal.  And it was for our transgressions that Christ was  bruised (Isaiah 53:5; Acts 8:35). The war in heaven represented by this bruising (Revelation 12:7), is not between equals. Satan's more severe wound to the head is crushed by Christ's heal. As our forerunner  (Hebrews 6:20) Christ has already defeated Satan (Revelation 20:10). The ongoing mopping up operations in the here and now however,  are left to His warrior bride. In particular He has  given us authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19).

He is under our feet, but as soldiers of Christ, we have to take up that authority, especially in prayer and confront the wicked spiritual forces of the enemy.  It is God's intention that the living would know that the most high God rules in the Kingdom of men  (Daniel 4:17). In light of this, you may be wondering why our marriages and families are so devastated,  and why the anti-god agenda of the extreme left has taken over our government, our media,  our educational institutes, and even part of the visible church.  Is it not because the true church of Jesus Christ is asleep and has abdicated it role as salt,  light and yeast in the World? We have even invented a theology of none involvement. How many of us even obey the command to pray for our governments (1 Timothy 2:1,2).

Lord Jesus,  You reminded me this morning that our struggle (enmity) is not against people (flesh and blood), but against Satan and his cohorts (Ephesians 6:12). It is not against those who  have been taken captive to do the devil's will (2 Timothy 2:26). There is no middle ground here Lord.  You told us “If you are not for me, you are against me” (Matthew 12:30).  Forgive us Lord, forgive me,  for the times we have used the weapons of the World rather than  spiritual weapons. Forgive us also Lord for the spirit of slumber that has too often characterized Your Church.  Give us new energy and an outpouring of Your Spirit Lord,  so that we might not sleep as many do, but  be be sober and watchful in prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:6). We declare Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven in Your precious Name Amen

Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave

.....to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”  The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12, 13). The Lord had asked Adam if he had eaten of the forbidden tree, verse 12 was his reply.   'It was the woman's fault, and actually God it was Your fault too, You're the One who gave her to me!' Adam was playing the blame game. And when Eve is confronted with her part, she blames the serpent. How well this book knows us!  Typically in and argument and in the break up of a marriage both parties blame the other100% for what went wrong. In the breakup of my first marriage I did,  that is until Holy Spirit convicted me of my part in it all (John 16:8).  It lead to my repentance and salvation.

The wrong we do, our sin, is never in a vacuum, one way or another it affects others. Eve's disobedience had affected Adam, he had a choice,  and whatever he chose there would be consequences. So yes, our sin affects others, and others' sin affects us. Too often we give a wrong response to wrong done to us. If we respond in bitterness,  that bitterness will defile (Hebrews 12:15). And whether we feel it's justified or not, it is  infectious. Perhaps it was bitterness that was passed on to their son Cain,  and was part of what motivated him to murder his brother (4:8). We do know sin is infectious and spreads like cancer. As mentioned earlier, we saw  great wickedness in the last century, and seeing that,  it's not hard to understand that wickedness became so great the Lord sent the flood as judgment on mankind (6:11, 12).

We can of course sit in judgment on the rest of the World but we, you and I, are part of the problem.  And as we saw with Adam and Eve sowing fig leaves together for coverings and hiding  from God  Lord (3: 7,8),  sin sabotages intimacy with each other and with God. Blame, confessing and often condemning the other person, makes it worse. In recovery we talk about taking care of our side of the street. It starts with examining our ways, testing them and returning to the Lord  (Lamentations 3:40).  We need to  humble ourselves, come to the foot of the cross where we see clearly that we have all sinned (Romans 3:23). We are then in a position in humility,  to obey the command to confess our faults to one another, and pray for one another. In this way we are promised healing (Romans 3:23; James 5:16).  It is the start of doing our part in bringing the Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven,  and as it was previously in paradise!

Lord Jesus, You call believers the light of the World. We are intended to be the yeast that changes  society. You tell us to be in the world,  but not of the world. And I come before You this morning confessing my own part,  and the part of Your called out ones, Your  ecclesia, Your body the Church,  in our being of the World but, in our isolation,  not in it. So we humble ourselves this morning Lord, we turn from out wicked ways, seek Your face and claim Your promise to heal our land,  in Your precious Name we pray Amen

And God said, “Who told you that you were naked?

.... Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat” (Genesis 3:11)? Adam had been hiding because he suddenly knew he was lost, naked, and he was afraid. The Lord had asked Adam where he was (3:9), He now followed up with this morning's questions. Many people see God as always angry, and just waiting for you to mess up so He can condemn you. And you can read this view of God into the text, because after all we don't hear the tone of His voice, whether gentle or harsh. It's one of the problems I have with audio versions of the Bible, they're not neutral!

 As mentioned yesterday God is longsuffering and not willing that any should perish, but all come to repentance. It's hard to come in repentance to One you think is always angry. And if this is you, then you like Eve have been deceived by the serpent (3:13). I say this, because it was God the Father who so loved the World that He sent His beloved Son Jesus to die on the cross. And He did this so He could be both just and merciful to forgive us when we fess up (John 3:16; 1 John 1:9; 1 Peter 3:18). Indeed God was in Christ reconciling the World to Himself, not counting people's sins against them. And Christ came into the World to seek and save you and me, like Adam, the lost (Luke 19:10). So let's read this later revelation of God's character into the tone and manner of how He approached Adam. In particular in God, “mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10). 

If you tell your young child “If you so much as put your big toe over that line, you will be punished,” and she looks at you defiantly and puts her toe, and only her toe, across the line, what do you do? You can unilaterally forgive without following through. But if you do, you will be merciful, but you will be teaching you child to push the limits, you will be encouraging bad behaviour, you will be an enabler! And God is not an enabler! To be just, sin has to be punished. And the Father laid on Jesus the punishment for us all (Isaiah 53:5, Acts 8:35). 

God took an awful risk in committing to give us free will. He does not send anyone to hell, but in Christ spreads His arms wide on the cross essentially saying “You will go to hell only over my dead body!” The unforgivable sin is surly simply rejecting the free gift of forgiveness (Romans 3:23). There can be no sin in paradise, so we do of course, have to repent (choose with His help to turn from our wicked ways) and so be being transformed and made ready for heaven - Mark 1:15).

 Father, since You are longsuffering and want all to be saved, I hear sorrow, grief and love in Your voice as You spoke to Adam. I sense that part of Your sorrow was that You had to follow through, for You are indeed just, and You are not an enabler. Thank You that You turned Your righteous anger on Jesus, so that You could be both faithful and just to forgive us. In view of Your tender mercies Lord I commit again this morning to present myself to You as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) in Jesus Name Amen

Then the LORD God called “Where are you Adam?”

He replied “I heard Your voice in the garden, and was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Being naked was not the problem, if it wasn't wrong before, it wasn't wrong now. Best to see this as a picture of feeling exposed in a world that is no longer safe. Knowledge in Biblical terms is much more than intellectual knowing. It is experience based, and can even indicate sex (as in Adam knew his wife 4:1, NKJV). Eating of the forbidden tree then (2:17), was about experiencing both good and evil. They had already experienced good of course, now they would experience evil. The very first wrong, but not the last by a long way, was blame (verse 12), Adam's failure to take responsibility for his own actions. Wrong didn't end there of course. With evil unrestrained, we see murder within a single generation, family feuds, great wickedness and all the thoughts of man's heart being only evil continually (4:8; 32:6; 6:5). 

The Bible speaks of this initial experience of evil as sin entering the world through Adam (Romans 5:12). And of course the nature of evil being like cancer in its ability to spread, we inherited both its nature, its influence and its effects. We don't have to look beyond the last century to see this. To the millions and millions executed under Stalin and Mao's purges, to Hitler's murder of six million Jews, to Pol Pot, to the various genocides, we have documented, the exponential growth of evil. 

The concept of the survival of the fittest, though it obviously contains truth, cannot adequately explain this. I read recently of a mother expressing the though that she loved her baby more than evolution required (New York Times op-ed). And we can surly say that as a race we both love and hate more than evolution requires. I know of no other plausible explanation than the Biblical one, that there is a force for good (the one we call God) and one for evil (the devils). Also no other plausible explanation of the fact that man is capable of the highest of heights in achievement and good, and the deepest of depths of depravity and evil.

Some see only the good, and some only the bad! But it is surly both. Man is capable of the highest of heights because he is made in God's image, and he is capable of the deepest depths because the ruler of this world, the serpent, the Devil (John 12:31), is the very personification of evil. The age old question comes to mind, “If God is good, then why does He allow evil?” The start (but only the start) of the answer, is that God is longsuffering towards us, and does not desire that any should perish in the Judgement at the end of the age, but that all should come to repentance and so inherit eternal life with God (2 Peter 3:9). In this morning's verse we read that God reached out to Adam. Every other religion outside of the Judaeo-Christain one is about man reaching up to God, earning acceptance by his behaviour. The Judaeo-Christain religion is God reaching down to man to provide a way for him to be reconciled with Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). 

 

 Lord Jesus, thank You that You so loved the World that You gave Yourself on the cross, so that whosoever puts his faith in You will not perish, but obtain everlasting life. Thank You in Your precious Name Amen