Redemptive Consequences for Man

It is, great to see all of you here, this morning. I do wanna, make sure that you all, know this, something will be said about this at the end of the service, but, this Friday, we are, having our Good Friday, service where we'll be celebrating communion. We will not be celebrating communion on Sunday. next Sunday, we will be doing, communion in our Good Friday service as we normally, do, and you guys are welcome to, be here for that Good Friday service, bring family and friends.

It'll be a one-hour service from 7:30 to 8:30 here in, in this auditorium. Friday, evening. And just to let, the Evangelical Formosan Church will not be joining us this year. they, we had, talked about that happening, but they are launching their own, tradition of celebrating Good Friday.

So this will be our first time in a number of years that the Formosan Church is, is not with us. So we will miss them and be thinking about them as they celebrate, as well. So that's this Friday at 7:30 in this, building, our Good Friday service. And then also, On Sunday.

What is next Sunday? Easter. and, we would encourage you to be here for our Easter service next week and, bring, invite family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. I can assure you that, you will be glad you brought them.

They will hear a solid presentation of the grace of the gospel and the truth about Jesus Christ that our world needs to hear. so, we look forward to that time of celebrating the resurrection of Christ together as a church body, as well as being able to minister the grace and the truth of the gospel, to any who are here, next week that do not, presently know the Lord. And I believe there are some of these, that you'll be able to pick up as you leave, this morning. You could use these two, little flyers, invitations to invite.

people to our service, next Sunday, but show up next Sunday, there's a breakfast at 9, and, more will be said about that at the end of our service today, but come next week, just prepare to worship the Lord, be an example through your worship, being attentive to God's word, and just looking around for any, any ways that you can be a blessing to anyone that the Lord brings, into this, into this room next Sunday, OK? Everyone's an usher next week. All right. All right, well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis chapter 3, we're continuing in our study of the Book of Genesis, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come to Genesis chapter 3, verse 17. And my goal today is to cover verses 17 through 19, and if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be redemptive Consequences for Man. Redemptive consequences for man. When I was about 9 years of age, our family lived near a flood control reservoir that featured a massive waterway type pipe that was about a concrete pipe that was about 10 ft in diameter and it was about 100 yards long.

That ran underground into this reservoir and there usually was not water in this pipe. And sometimes my brothers and I and our friends, we would play near and in this tunnel and see how far we could walk into the darkness of the tunnel without being afraid. one of the things that we noticed, was that our voices would echo inside this concrete. tunnel.

So a lot of times we would just yell out things, just for the sheer joy of hearing our voices echo through the darkness of that tunnel. And I'm embarrassed to share this with you, but on one occasion, I was near the opening of this tunnel, and I thought I was totally by myself and so in a moment of tremendous stupidity, I let out a string of horrible profanities that I had heard in school merely for the purpose of hearing those profanities echo through the darkness of the tunnel.

As soon as those words had come out of my mouth, the echo had hardly even returned back to me before I noticed that my older brother was nearby. And I realized that he had heard every word that I had spoken.

I also noticed him immediately getting on his bicycle and racing home. As fast as he could, and I saw the look on his face and it was the gleeful look. Of a tattletale. I went home sometime after that with fear and dread and I walked into the front door of the house.

My mom greeted me at the front door of our home. She grabbed me by the arm and she led me into our bathroom. And she took a bar of soap. And she literally washed out my mouth with soap.

To this day, I still remember the taste of that soap. What was my mom doing? My mom was disciplining me and there was a certain poetic justice in the way that she went about disciplining me. I had spoken filth with my mouth and my mom responded by directing her chastisement toward my mouth, and she washed out my mouth with soap.

Now, my mom is not here to explain what she was thinking at the time, but I am sure that my mom was under no illusion that the particular brand of soap that she was using on that day had power to truly cleanse my mouth and my heart of filth. The whole thing was a picture. It was a metaphor, a painful metaphor. Representing the seriousness of what I had done and the cleansing that I needed.

My mom's purpose, as painful and distasteful as it was for me, was not merely punitive, but it was redemptive. She hoped that I would learn from the experience and become A better person. And I did learn from it. In the short term, I learned to never again use profanity when my older brother was around.

It was later, it was later in life when God Himself did a work of cleansing my heart and my mouth of filth, and the soap experience that I had at the age of 9 served as a foreshadowing of that. I start with that this morning because we see something similar happening in our passage today where God delivers in verses 17 through 19, what we are calling redemptive consequences upon Adam in response to what Adam had done in partaking of the forbidden fruit. Adam had sinned in eating and therefore he will experience consequences with regard to eating as a result.

In fact, let me trim down the passage and make this clear.

I want you to notice just in our verses for today, how many times the word for eating occurs. Verse 17, God says, because you have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it, you will eat, you will eat, you will eat. And we will try to unpack what God is up to in these verses as he is officially responding to Adam's sin in our passage today. Just to back up a little bit, you guys will recall if you've been with us that Adam and Eve have sinned and they have eaten.

Of the forbidden fruit. When God shows up in the garden, Adam and Eve hide from God. God draws them out and he engages them in a conversation and gets them to a place where they admitted their sins. Adam and Eve both do some blame shifting and deflecting in their words to God, but in the end, Adam says, I ate, and Eve says, I ate.

Once they admit their sins, God begins to speak in Genesis 3:14, and he speaks all the way through verse 19. He speaks to the serpent. In verses 14 and 15, and then to Eve in verse 16, and then he speaks to Adam in verses 17 through 19. As we've worked through these verses, we've already seen three elements in the unfolding of God's severe mercy upon Adam and Eve.

We have seen that God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent or Satan. We have seen that God promises that the woman will experience multiplied pains with regard to childbirth. Nonetheless, she will have children, she will not be barren. We have also seen that God promises that the woman's desire will be for her husband or to rule or to dominate her husband, yet he will rule over her, indicating on the positive side of things that Adam and Eve's marriage will continue even though it has taken a hit, and it will continue with complications.

We come this morning to verses 17. Through 19, where we will see how God deals specifically with Adam in response to Adam's sins, and we'll see the redemptive consequences that God imposes on him. Before we break the passage down, let me just read the text to you beginning in verse 17. Says then to Adam, God said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying, you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you.

In toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you. And you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This is the word of God, and may God help us. To open our hearts to Him and to hear His word to us today. Here's how we'll break the passage down, we'll observe 5 responses or if you wanna fill that in a little more, 5 redemptive responses of God to Adam's sins that we find in verses 17 through 19. And response number 1, we find beginning in verse 17.

And that is that God enumerates Adam's sins. He states, Adam sins in verse 17, and we'll see that there are two of them that God identifies here. The text says then to Adam, God said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying you shall not eat. Let's just stop right there.

There are two sins that God is calling. Adam out for the sin of listening to the voice of his wife, and secondly, the sin of eating from the tree that God had commanded him not to eat. Notice the first sin that God identifies, listening to the voice of his wife. Adam, you listen to the voice of your wife.

Now husbands, before you use this verse to explain. Why you don't listen to the voice of your wife. Please understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with listening to the voice of your wife. In fact, it is actually a sin for you not to listen to the voice of your wife.

God wants you. It is good to listen. to the voice of your wife. But having said that, there is something very wrong with a man listening to the voice of his wife when she is counseling him to do the opposite of what God has told him to do, and that is what God is faulting.

Adam 4 in this passage, God had specifically commanded Adam not to eat of the tree, but Eve told Adam to eat from the tree. That God had prohibited. There was a discrepancy between what Eve was saying to Adam and what God had said to Adam, and Adam chose to listen to his wife rather than listen to the clear command that God had given to him. In the process, Adam chooses Eve over God, which is wrong for any husband to do.

It is equally wrong for any wife to ever listen to the voice of her husband when her husband is telling her to do something that is contrary to what God. has told her to do. What has happened to Adam has happened to all of us. God says one thing to Adam, and yet someone whom Adam cared about and respected, said the opposite.

Eve was actually a gift from God to Adam, and yet here she is telling Adam to do the opposite of what God had told Adam to do. Who should Adam have listened to in this moment? God. The same is true for you and for me.

God tells us one thing. And yet sometimes there are people in our lives whom we love, whom we respect, whom we care about, who even care about us, who say the opposite of what God says to us in His word. And in those moments, we have a decision, who am I gonna listen to, God or these people that I care about and who care about me? Who should we listen to?

In those moments, God, we should listen to God, but Adam did not do that and noticed the progression. He listened to the voice of his wife, and then he ate. Of the tree God told him not to eat. He listened, then he ate.

He listened. Then he sinned And that's what often happens to us. The sins that we often commit are the byproduct of what or whom we chose to listen to. Be forewarned by this and learn this lesson well, that your behavior is often the byproduct of whom you have chosen to give your attention to.

Many of our sins lie somewhere downstream of our listening. Show me what or whom you are listening to today, and I will show you what your likely sins will be tomorrow. Maybe even today. It's interesting, the word that is translated, listen is the Hebrew word shame, which means to listen with the intention of obeying.

It doesn't just mean to hear something and then do whatever you want with it. this word means to like give heed to, to listen with the intention of doing what you're being told. In fact, about 80 times in the New American Standard, translation, about 80 times in the Old Testament, the word shama is actually translated as obey. In 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel says to King Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice, and in the Hebrew, it's to Shamah is better than sacrifice.

Clearly, he means obedience here and it's the same word that is being used here. Essentially, Adam obeyed his wife. He gave heed to the voice of his wife rather than the voice of God. Temptation did not come to Adam.

In the form of a low hanging, beautiful, delicious fruit. It came to him in the form of a beautiful wife who came to him with that fruit and asked him to enjoy that fruit together with her in the context of a relationship with her, and Adam obeyed her voice, rather than obeying the voice of God. So there are two sins of Adam in this passage. He listened to his wife, giving heed to her voice, and in the process, he disregarded the voice of God and ate of the forbidden fruit.

It's not really two separate sins, it's two sides of one awful coin. And so God says to Adam, because you have done this, here are the consequences, and that brings us to the next response of God to Adam's sins. And that is he curses the ground because of Adam's sins. He curses the ground because of Adam's sins.

Cursed is the ground, God says, because of you. This is really a pivotal moment, and it'd be easy for us to just miss this and scurry by it, but I want you to, to, to appreciate how Adam's heart would have been racing at this particular point as God is speaking. God has, or Adam has just heard God speaking to the serpent and saying to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you. And now God is looking at Adam.

And pointing at Adam, saying, here's what you have done. And then God says, Because of what you have done. Cursed is the ground. Because of what you have done, Adam, and then his finger turns from Adam and points to the ground.

It says, because of what you have done, cursed is The ground For your sake This is mercy A severe mercy because this curse upon the ground is going to greatly impact Adam as he seeks to derive his sustenance from the soil for the rest of his life, but it is mercy nonetheless, because God did not say to Adam, because of what you have done, cursed are you. God does not say that. God curses the ground instead of Adam. As we saw two weeks ago, Like in cursing the ground, let's think about this.

Two weeks ago, we saw that there are few joys that rank any higher for a woman than the joy of bringing new life into the world, right? Yet we learn from verse 16, that as a result of Adam and Eve's sin, this joyful event of giving birth for Eve is going to experience an invasion of pain. And we see the same dynamic here in God's words to Adam. There are few things that bring more joy to a man than eating.

Yet this area of pleasure will experience an invasion of hardship and of pain. Additionally, and even more importantly, there are a few things more satisfying to a man than working with his hands and garnering a living for his family, which for Adam would be cultivating the earth day by day, and yet God is telling Adam that in this arena of great personal fulfillment and meaning, there will be an invasion of frustration and of pain. As one writer says, so well, he says the woman's punishment struck at the deepest root of her being as a wife and mother, the man's strikes at the innermost nerve of his life, his work, his activity, and provision for sustenance.

These things that meant so much to Eve and meant so much to Adam will experience an invasion.

An assault of pain and frustration. So notice what God does next as he delivers, continues to deliver his official response to Adam for Adam's sins, and that is he explains what the curse will mean for Adam. This is actually a gracious thing. He's like, I'm cursing the ground and I want you to understand, Adam, what this is going to mean for you and what follows is 3 or 4, depending on how you want to break it down, promises that God makes.

Which all cluster around the words you will eat. Let me, just read the passage to you. He says in verse 17, in toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field, and by the sweat of your face, you will eat. Bread You will eat, you will eat, you will eat.

surrounded by frustration that God is explaining to him. As the saying goes, the fastest way to a man's heart is through his Stomach And so it is very obvious here that God is going after Adam's heart in a big way. There's also poetic justice here. Adam's sin was in the eating of what he should not have eaten, so his consequences will go right to the area of his eating.

And what follows are 3 explanatory statements that God makes to explain what this curse upon the ground will mean for Adam. Let's look at each of these pretty quickly. In verse 17, he says, in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. In toil, you might want to mark that word toil.

The Hebrew word translated toil speaks of labor, sorrow, and pain. If you wanna know what that word means, just think labor, sorrow, and pain. This is actually the same word. That God uses in verse 16 to speak of what Eve will experience with regard to childbirth and mothering, where God says, I will greatly multiply your pain.

And it's the same Hebrew word there. Eve will experience toil and sorrow and labor in bringing forth children, and Adam will likewise experience toil and sorrow and labor in bringing forth from the soil what he needs. And what his family will need to subsist on. As one Jewish commentator, Nehem Sarna says, the man's backbreaking physical labor is regarded There we go.

The man's backbreaking physical labor is regarded as the male equivalent of the labor of childbearing. I think there are ladies in here who would beg to differ, but God is the one using the same word here to speak of both what the woman goes through and what the man, and ladies, if you understand the idea of toil that is found in verse 16 when God is speaking to Eve to, include the toils of not only giving birth but also of raising children and just being a mother in general, you realize that just as there are many pains and sorrows and labors involved in motherhood, so there is pain and sorrow and labor in a man making a living for his family and managing that, and God is promising that to Adam, verse 18, God says, both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you, and, or you could even say, thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you even as you eat of the plants of the field.

We've already learned that the plants of the field, back in chapter 2, we learned this, are those plants that grow as a result of human cultivation. And God is saying in part that you will encounter thorns and thistles as you cultivate the ground and harvest the plants of the field that you might partake of them.

Now, as for the thorns that are mentioned here, we all know what thorns are, right? thistles are the plants that we would probably roughly equate with weeds nowadays. Thorns and weeds are what God is promising here. Thorns that hurt and prickly weeds that irritate you as you cultivate the earth and harvest it, weeds that rob the earth of its nutrients that you would love to rather go to the plants that you are wanting to partake of.

And the weeds and thistles often can block sunlight that a plant needs. The vegetation that the earth produces will be in more meager quantities, God is saying, than what man would wish for, and this is partly Because instead, the earth is going to be delivering up its nutrients to produce thorns and thistles which man does not want. When it comes to the thorns, God is promising Adam that Adam will bleed as he tends to the earth and seeks to derive his living from the soil. And look at the next statement that God makes by way of unpacking what this curse on the ground is gonna mean for him.

He says, by the sweat of your face, you will eat bread. Adam, when you sit down to eat, the sweat will often still be pouring down your face as a result of the hard work that you have been doing, in harvesting. As well as processing what it is that you are partaking of, and perhaps there's an illusion here to inclement weather, with him sweating. Maybe one could argue that global warming begins here.

this promise from God speaks of the difficulties of cultivation and harvesting and processing food, and it might also include uncooperative temperatures that will make life less than comfortable. For Adam and for Eve. God is promising that Adam is going to have to work hard. We know from Genesis 2:15 that the work of cultivating the ground actually pre-existed the fall.

So we have that in chapter 2, but after the fall, Adam is going to cultivate, but he's gonna have to work much harder at cultivating than he did before because now he is cultivating a ground that is less than willing to yield up its bounty to him. One writer describes the change in this way. He says, Eden's free lunch has been turned into a no work, no eat plan. And he will work and work hard to get from the earth what he needs to subsist on.

Nonetheless, as we look at these statements by God, I don't want us to miss the grace here. Yes, there will be toil, there will be thorns and thistles and sweat. Yet, when you trim all of that away, you have at the core of what God says to Adam, a wonderful assurance, you will eat. You will eat You will eat, Adam.

As for what Adam will eat, God is saying you will eat from the soil, you will eat the plants of the field, you will eat bread. Remember how we have learned in chapter 1 and even in chapter 2 that when something is said 3 times, it's like putting an exclamation point. On that thing and that's what we have here. When we strip away all of the modifiers, we actually see a line of grace running right through these verses.

Yes, there will be hardship and toil and thorns and thistles and sweat, yet God says to Adam, you will eat, you will eat, you will eat. Adam will not starve to death. God could have said, because you have eaten what I told you not to eat, you will never eat anything again. But God doesn't do that.

Adam will get to eat. The earth will yield up its produce for him, and he will eat of it. Just like God told Eve, you will have pain in childbearing, but you will bear children, you won't be barren. The same is true here for Adam.

He will have pain in harvesting, but he will get his harvest and he will eat. God will see to that. This thought sets us up nicely to appreciate the next response of God to Adam just as we break the passage down, and that is he assures Adam that he is cursing the ground for Adam's sake. He assures Adam that he is cursing the ground for Adam's sake.

He says cursed is the ground because of you. That little prepositional phrase because of you, it seems redundant on the surface, it might even seem unnecessary. It's easy to not even notice that little phrase and saying because of you, I don't think God is just saying the ground is cursed because you sinned, Adam. God has already communicated that.

Saying, because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the tree I told you not to eat, cursed is the ground, so he's already conveyed. The cause, but then God says cursed is the ground. Because of you. Literally, the idea is cursed is the ground for your sake.

In fact, the King James translation says, curse is the ground for thy sake. The new King James, curses the ground for your sake. This language indicates that the cursing of the ground was not merely punitive, but also redemptive. We parents talk this way.

Sometimes when we discipline our children, technically, we can say to them, I am imposing this discipline upon you because of what you did, but I am also Imposing this discipline upon you for your sake. My mom years ago did not merely wash my mouth out with soap because of what I had done, she also washed my mouth out with soap for my sake. With a redemptive purpose. That's exactly, I believe what's happening here.

This is God's way of saying, Adam, I am doing this because of what you did, but I'm also doing this for your sake. You may not realize this or appreciate this right now, but you need for me to do what I am doing right now and cursing the ground and all that that will mean for you. This is in your best interest. As one writer says, God does not curse the earth because he delights in blasting a perfect world, but for man's sake.

Such a world would best tend to induce men to be ready to accept God's salvation. So you put these ideas together and you have God saying, because you've sinned, cursed is the ground, and it is also cursed for the sake of you. I'm doing this, Adam, for your good. Now that begs the question, how can God say that he is cursing the ground for Adam's sake?

I think we know God well enough from the rest of scripture to know that he's not being vindictive and just simply venting here in a careless way. God is being profoundly deliberate. Intentional and redemptive in his purposes, but what are his purposes? Why does he curse the ground for Adam's sake?

Let's ponder several possible purposes of God in cursing the ground for Adam's sake. One of those purposes would be to depict what is now a reality for God given Adam's sin. To depict the mixed harvest that God Himself will now reap from mankind as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve. In leveling these conditions on the ground, God is showing Adam the conditions that his sin is going to bring about for God Himself as the harvester of mankind.

Throughout the scripture, God is depicted as a harvester. Jesus himself refers to God as the Lord of the harvest. The harvest of souls. And because of the fall, God is going to reap wheat.

And tears when harvest time comes, because of sin in a fallen world, there will be the seeds of God's word that will fall on hardened soil and will not grow or take root at all. Some seed will fall on rocky soil and be short lived, and some. The seed of the word of God will fall on thorny soil which will choke the working of God's word in the lives of people. Some seed will fall on good soil and grow in beautiful and manifold ways, but all in all, we're talking about a mixed harvest that now comes to God, the Lord of the harvest.

So one could argue that God is imposing these conditions upon Adam to bring Adam into his own pain. As the Lord of the harvest of mankind. Tied to this is yet another reason that God possibly imposes these conditions on Adam, and that is to show Adam what his own sin looked like to God. Adam did not bring forth the obedience that God had created him to bring forth, and instead, Adam brought forth painful disobedience to God.

And Adam will receive from the earth which he was called by God to rule over and subdue. He will now receive from the earth the same response. When experiencing the puncturing pangs of thorns from the earth and the reluctance of the earth to yield up its bounty to him, Adam would no doubt think on many occasions in the days to come, this is what I have done to God. There's another reason that God possibly imposes these conditions upon Adam, and this is perhaps, I think, probably the most important reason of all, and that is to show Adam.

And all of mankind, what the Messiah will endure in order to bring forth. A harvest, a righteous harvest in man. Ultimately, it will take much labor and toil and sweat on God's part to bring forth full obedience and righteousness in man. Notice the words that God uses to describe Adam's life, toil, thorns.

And sweat Write those words down, toil, thorns, and sweat. Interestingly, Christ experienced all three of those to produce the righteous harvest that he came to produce and bring forth from a fallen world. As for toil, we know that Christ experienced great trouble and travail in his soul. We know from Isaiah 53 that Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

In John 12:27, Christ says to his disciples, my soul has become troubled. In Mark 14:24, Christ says, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. In Isaiah 53:11, the text speaks of the anguish of his, the Messiah's soul, and the word translated anguish there in Isaiah 53:11 speaks of labor and trouble and toil. It's a synonym for the word that God uses here in Genesis 3.

Here in Genesis 3, God is telling Adam that the earth will produce thorns. And we know from the Gospel accounts from Mark 15:17, in particular, that a crown of thorns will be placed upon the head of Christ and then beaten into his brow with a reed. God also tells Adam that he will sweat. He will experience sweat, the sweat of great labor, and in Luke 22:44, we see Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, sweating as it were, great drops of blood as he agonized in prayer over his impending death as he is about to die and burying our sins that we might be saved.

So we have sweat. We have toil, we have thorns here promised in Genesis 3. God is telling Adam that he will experience all of these things as he seeks to produce a harvest from the earth, and they just happen to be sweat, toil, and thorns, the very things that Christ will also experience when he comes to earth to produce the harvest and man that God longs for. Hence, in part, we can say that God imposes these curse conditions upon the earth so that Adam's life, so that man's life will be a living metaphor, a foreshadowing of what the Messiah himself will endure when he comes.

There's yet another thing that we can suggest that God is up to here and imposing the curse and these labors upon Adam and all of us, and that is to slow the progress of evil in men. To slow the progress of evil in man and putting on man the burden of tilling the ground and eking out a living. Day after day for many of his hours, man's energies. would thus be occupied for at least a good part of his life in making a living and providing for himself and his family, and this would serve to slow the progress of evil in his life.

Imagine how quickly evil would progress in man if man has an evil heart and yet was left to do nothing but live in leisure in a perfect world with nothing on his hands to do. As Henry Morris states, the necessity of laboring merely to keep alive would go far toward inhibiting still further rebellion. It's not the cure-all, but God is thinking with the long view and for people to have to spend hours a day to eke out a living for themselves would at least have the benefit of slowing the progress of evil more than What would be the case if man had no need to work at all?

There's one final thing that God is doing, I think, in leveling this curse upon the ground for Adam's sake, and that is to point to the hope, to point to The hope that lies in the future.

What we see in these verses here in Genesis 3 are the beginnings of what Paul spoke about in Romans chapter 8, verses 20 and 21 where he tells us, listen to this, that the creation That the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it and hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption and the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Part of what God is doing. Is causing the earth's condition to actually match in some ways man's fallen condition, so that the earth's deliverance from its fallen condition will come at the same time that man is delivered from his fallen condition.

In the meantime, mankind, Adam, and all of us will hear the earth groan.

We will hear the earth groan with longing for our redemption. That's why Paul in Romans 8:22 says the whole creation, the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now because it's destiny. is tied to our own destiny. The earth fell as it were, when man fell, and the earth will experience deliverance when the children of God, that's us who believe in Jesus, when we experience our full deliverance and are revealed in glory.

In the meantime, God is assuring Adam and all of us that you will hear. The earth groan For your redemption. In summary, the conditions that God is imposing upon Adam here are significant. Yet they are profoundly intentional and with an eye toward man's ultimate redemption.

There's more. There's a 5th response of God to Adam's sin, a 5th redemptive response, and that is he announces Adam's eventual death. He announces Adam's eventual death. Verse 19, he says, you're gonna experience all of these things until you return to the ground because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This passage contains what one writer calls the law of dust. God is saying to Adam, the day will come when you will die. The serpent will eat of the dust of the ground all the days of its life, but you, Adam, will actually one day return to the ground and your body will become dirt again. The reason you will return to the ground is because it was from the ground that you were taken, and one day it will swallow you up again.

Technically, Our bodies are just reformulated dirt. It's not a flattering way to think of our bodies, but technically, our human physical bodies are reformulated dirt. So when the body dies, God is saying, It will turn back into the dirt from which it came. This returning to dust is a part of the curse, but it was interesting, and I was instructed by this, that, that commentators talk about how this, the idea of death is actually stated in a positive.

way as a release from the toils of this life. God is saying to Adam, Adam, you will have toil and sweat and thorns and thistles until you return, until you return to the ground. When death comes for many, especially those who know the Lord, it comes as a relief. This is why many, especially those who know the Lord, are happy and relieved when death finally arrives.

It is a welcome reprieve. Death is good news to those who are tired of this world and who long for a better world. And in promising Adam that Adam is going to die in this way, God is promising Adam that there will come an end to this chapter of existence. There will come an end to the toils of this life.

His experience of such toil will not last forever. But it will come to an end. Listen to what Henry Morris says as he unpacks this. He says it was better that suffering and death accompany sin than that rebellion be permitted to thrive unchecked in a deathless economy as originally created.

With no death, men would proliferate in number and wickedness without limit. And so God placed the curse on man and his whole environment, thus forcing him to recognize the seriousness of his sin, as well as his helplessness to save himself and his dominion from eventual destruction. Such a condition would encourage him toward a state of repentance toward God and a desire for God to provide deliverance from the evil state upon which he had fallen. I think that's well said.

And I hope it's becoming clear why it is that God is saying to Adam. I'm doing this for your sake. I'm doing this for your sake. Richard Phillips in his book, The Masculine Mandate says that these conditions along with the eaves that God is imposing upon mankind are the poison.

For which God alone is the antidote. These conditions will bring men ultimately back to God. I hope also you're noticing that there is no consequence that God is leveling upon man that he will not himself. Also endure to an even greater extent in order for man to be saved.

Even here in pronouncing, we've already seen that the toil and the sweat And the labor And the thorns that he promises upon Adam that God through his Son will place himself underneath that, so that we might be saved through the redemption that he provides in dying for us. But even here in this passage, God is promising Adam that he will die and return to the dust, and God says that to Adam, knowing that God will send his own son into the world to also experience death. In Psalm 22:15, write that reference down.

In Psalm 22:15 in a Messianic Psalm, it is said that the Messiah will be laid to, quote, the dust of death, unquote.

He will go down to and experience the dust of death. So everything God is unleashing here are consequences that he himself will one day Endure in order to accomplish our redemption. And this fact points us to the poetic mercy in all of this. We can be thankful that God was willing to send His own Son into this fallen world to come under the conditions.

Of this cursed world together with us. Jesus Christ bore the curse of sin more than anyone ever has. He toiled like no one has ever toiled. He sweat like no one has ever sweat, and he felt thorn pricks like no one has ever felt them, and he went to the dust of death.

All so that through his suffering and through his death, He might deliver us from our sins, from the guilt of our sins, and ultimately, eventually save us completely to where we are delivered. From the curse altogether. This is such a perfect note for us to strike here on this particular Sunday of the year. It was on this Sunday of the year, 2000 years ago that Christ entered into Jerusalem.

And wept over the city of Jerusalem, knowing that he was going to suffer and die this very week of the year. It is literally this very week of the year that we are launching into today in which Christ will experience the anguishing toil and the sweat of blood drops and the prick of thorn pricks and the dust of death in order. To purchase for us our salvation, and all of that is foreshadowed. In our passage today.

We deserve to be the ones who toil and sweat and experience thorn pricks in order to eat from a cursed ground. We are the ones who deserve to die. And yet Christ Himself endured. endured the toil and the sweat and the thorns and the dying in order that he might then on the other side of that having been raised, come to us, holding the bread and the cup, representing himself, and he gives to us the bread and he says, eat.

Of me. And God the Father comes to us in that same moment and he points to his son. And he says to us, though you have sinned. I give you my son who suffered and died for you, and I say to you, You may eat of him.

You may eat of him. You may eat Of him. Let's pray together If you're here today and you have never taken And Eton of Christ, this one who endured the curse. Will you not do so today?

We deserve to have our mouths filled with the judgment of God that is shoved down our throats, and yet God responds to us with mercy. And he gives to us a Savior who came and endured. The curse for us. He took upon himself the judgment.

that we deserve for our sins. And then God raised him from the dead and this risen Lord who now has absolute lordship, and he can do whatever he pleases, he comes to you today and And says you can have forgiveness for your sins. If you will but see your bankruptcy. Quit trying to commend yourself to God and to earn your way to heaven.

And just look outside of yourself to me. And believe in me. And if you have never looked outside of yourself to this one. who endured the curse for you.

I pray that God would touch your heart and awaken you to the beauty of this Lord, this Savior, and that you would believe in Him today, even right now where you're seated. And if you have any additional questions about how to become a child of God, please come and talk to me afterwards or Go to the guest table and we, we would love to answer whatever questions you have and Just help you to journey to the cross, a journey that most of us in this room have made. We're just broken sinners who have found grace in Jesus, and you are welcome to find the same grace together with us.

Lord, we thank you so much for Just the reality of your word.

This is not pie in the sky. This is real. Passages like this explain the world as we see it. There's tremendous genius and wisdom in, in your ways and then even in how you choose to reveal that to us here.

And we are left stunned and amazed. At your grace, Lord, we We are sorry for the thorns that we have yielded up to you. We are sorry for the ways that we have pained your heart through the sins that we have committed. We know in Genesis 6, as you look at the wicked world before the flood, the text says literally that you were pained.

Onto your heart. You are deeply pained by your sins. We have yielded thorns and thistles. We have produced so much less than what we should have.

And we thank you for giving us a picture of what our sin looks like. But we also thank you, Lord, for this foreshadowing, even in this text of what the Messiah would endure so that we might be delivered from the curse ultimately. Just teach us, Lord, to look to you. To learn of you, to be dazzled and amazed by your amazing grace.

To believe in you and to trust you. Because you are a good God and your ways are perfect. Even in orchestrating the fallenness that we experience in this broken planet, your intentions are profoundly redemptive. And the groaning that we see about us and the earthquakes and the tornadoes, and the brokenness in the human existence that we see.

These are the groanings. The groanings. That all creation feels as it longs for our redemption. That will come We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, and we ask that you would receive these funds and do much.

With every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus. And the spread of this message of the truth about him. At the same time, we surrender ourselves and give ourselves to you in Jesus' name, and all God's people say. Amen.