Genesis Sermons (written)

The Line of Cain
Genesis 4:17-26

Introduction: Today, we’ll look over the line of Cain which encompasses almost the entire second half of Chapter 4 of Genesis. While we’re here, we should probably answer the age old question “Where did Cain get his wife?” If you ever saw the movie Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracey, you know this question was brought up there. The movie is a take on the Scopes Monkey Trial. If you’ve never seen it, don’t bother.

It’s a pathetic attempt to make Christians looked stupid, bigoted, and close-minded. From the very first frames of the movie where the people are signing “Give me that old time religion – it’s good enough for me…” all the way through to the end, it’s an all out attack on Christianity.

During the trial, the defense attorney, played by Spencer Tracey, gets the prosecutor – a guy named Brady – on the stand. One commentary on the movie says, “Brady’s confidence in his biblical knowledge is so great that he welcomes this challenge, but he becomes flustered under Drummond’s cross-examination, unable to explain certain apparent contradictions, until Drummond hammers home his point — that Cates, like any other man, demands the right to think for himself.”

The questions that “fluster” Brady include the question, “Where did Cain get his wife.” When he’s asked this, he incompetently gasps and sweats at the immense difficulty of what he’s been presented – as if it’s too deep for the human mind to comprehend. The guy is portrayed as a completely bumbling, arrogant, close-minded, and self-deluded person.

And people ever since then have tried to appear smart by asking a this same question of Bible teachers – as if the movie set a precedent and that no one has been able to answer to since then.

In fact, whether you believe in evolution or creation, you come up with exactly the same problem. The only difference is that evolution can’t properly identify the solution. Any evolutionary answer would lead to devolution, not further evolution.

The biblical answer is found in chapter 5 of Genesis – “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. ⁴ After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. ⁵ So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.”

We have no idea if Cain was the firstborn child of Adam or not and in fact some scholars believe the terminology at Cain’s birth indicates girls were born first.

Here’s what Albert Barnes says about it –

“If she had daughters before, and saw them growing up to maturity, this would explain her expectation, and at the same time give a new significance and emphasis to her exclamation, “I have gained a man (heretofore only women) from Yahweh.”

So girls could have been born first. No problem there…

And we have no idea if there were girls between Cain and Abel too. One thing we are sure of though is that Adam “had sons and daughters” besides them. In 930 years, he could have had a bunch. If there were twins, triplets, or quadruplets, there could have been a heap of them. Poor Eve!

And each of these children could have lots of children during those 930 years. By the time Adam died, there potentially could have been an immense population on the earth. There is no restriction levied on marrying brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, or anything else until the time of the Law of Moses.

In fact, Abraham, who was only 430 years before the law and about 1950 years after creation, married his own half sister. No negative comment is made on that and it was accepted as normal. The gene pool back then would have been whoppingly strong and intermarrying like this wouldn’t be any problem at all.

The great unanswerable question of “Where did Cain get his wife?” isn’t unanswerable at all. He got her from the daughters of Adam his father. Take that Spencer Tracey.

Text Verse: Blessed be the name of the LORD
From this time forth and forevermore!
From the rising of the sun to its going down
The LORD’s name is to be praised. Psalm 113:2, 3

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. A Descent into Wickedness

¹⁷And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. ¹⁸To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech.

Although we don’t see it yet, the genealogy we just read will lead to a division between the godly line of Seth and the wicked line of Cain. The godly line remains in the presence of the Lord and his plans and purposes are centered on the Creator, but eventually even this godly line corrupts to the point where only one man and his family would be saved in order to repopulate the world.

The line of wickedness, even from the beginning, is removed from the presence of the Lord – just as Cain was, and it is centered on worldly things and the love of those things. These things aren’t explicitly stated, but they are to be inferred by the structure of the verses and their placement in the overall Genesis account, along with comments made later in the Bible.

In the last sermon we read – “Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.” Believe it or not, this same area of the world, even 6000 years later is where the main opposition to God is and where the forces of evil are lined up against what is right and godly.

After Cain found his supposedly unfindable wife, she “conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son – Enoch.”

The word used for “city” here is the word Ir. This is specifically a city with walls constructed as a defense or a barricade. The walls themselves are the city. Everything inside the walls was secondary to the protection they provided.

Cain had separated himself from anyone who could harm him and he had likewise separated himself from anything that could help him as well. In effect, he had shut himself off from the very presence of the Lord in his effort to secure himself. We can see a parallel in what occurred when the Chinese built their great wall.

The name of Cain’s son Enoch means “dedicated,” but it also can have the meaning of “teaching.” In the context though, it’s probable that Cain was thinking of dedication. His son was born sometime around when he built his fortress city and he named or “dedicated” the city with the same name as his son.

He did this instead of naming it after himself. The cursed name of Cain wouldn’t have been an ideal name for starting out on a new life and so he deferred to the dedication of his son and his home. After Cain and Enoch the Bible records 4 more in this line –

To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech.

We should note that 2 of the names of Cain’s descendants are the same names as the descendants of Seth, the son who replaced Abel. These are Enoch and Lamech. But just as there are good people and bad people with the same names now, it was also the case then.

Just as there is a good Judas (or Jude) who wrote the 65^th book of the Bible, there is also a corrupt and wicked Judas who was, as the Bible describes him the “son of perdition” – a term applied only one other time – to the anti-Christ.

When we get to chapter five, we’ll read the genealogy of Adam through Seth and down to Noah. But unlike that genealogy, this one is strikingly short. It lacks any commentary and it lacks any other ancestral information. Yes, these people existed, but their lives are unimportant to the greater plan of redemption. Instead, they are souls remembered without delight.

One thing we should ask about our own selves is, “How will we be remembered?” The Bible is written and there isn’t any room for details concerning us there, but even the Old Testament tells us that our lives won’t go unrecorded. In the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi relates to us what it is to be remembered by God for a faithful life –

“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, And the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD And who meditate on His name. ¹⁷“They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.” ¹⁸ Then you shall again discern Between the righteous and the wicked, Between one who serves God And one who does not serve Him.”

While we’re pondering the life of Cain and his generations that were swept away in the flood, we should take to heart that God remembers those who meditate on His name.

The only thing else that I can give you of any substance from the names of Cain’s descendants is that two of them include the suffix “El” – Mehujael and Methushael. There was, even in the line of Cain, a remembrance or knowledge of God and it was denoted in these two names. Mehujael means “smitten by God” and Methushael means “who is of God.”

For whatever its worth, man – even man who lives apart from God – has a sense and a knowledge of Him. Eventually though, even this disappears from thought as we move toward a humanistic or idol-centered approach to life.

In modern society, we’re moving in that same direction as they did, paying lip service to the name of God but denying His character and His sovereign authority.

II. The Worldly Man

The Bible contrasts groups of people in various ways. Often what is commented on as notable, such as Abraham and the patriarchs living in tents is notable for the ideals they held in that context. There is nothing inherently wrong with living in cities.

In other words, here’s what it says about them from Hebrews 11 –

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

These men were told that they would live as strangers in the land and that only later their descendants would inherit that land. In obedience to this, they continued living in tents. If they were never to possess the land and yet they hoped for a city with foundations, then it’s obvious that what they hoped for was something eternal, not to be grasped in this life.

These verses are descriptive in nature. In other words they only describe what a situation was and why it was notable. They don’t prescribe anything for us, such as living in tents.

Instead, they provide a moral lesson that what’s important is not where we live, but how we conduct our lives. So please don’t go selling your houses to buy a tent. Paul himself was a tentmaker, but that doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that he made tents.

It’s important to know this and so I’m going to divert for just a minute and give a few rules for you to follow when you study your Bible. In fact, I’ll give you five things to remember.

First, “does this merely describe something – is it descriptive.” Second, “does this actually prescribe something – is it prescriptive.” And lastly, “what is the context?”

If you can remember those five things, your understanding of whatever you’re reading will be greatly enhanced. “But Charlie, you only gave us three things to think about. Have you been drinking too much mango juice again?”

The answer is that I gave you five things to think about and you didn’t pay attention.

Is it descriptive, is it prescriptive, and what is the context? See, five things. I just didn’t elaborate on the five points – descriptive, prescriptive and context, context, context. Never take a verse or a passage out of context.

Under these five main points are some great things to ask yourself as you’re reading –

***How does this point to Jesus?
***How does this relate to the overall picture of redemption? And,
***If the passage isn’t prescriptive or descriptive, then what is it telling me? For example, how do I view the following passage –

⁹ Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. ¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. ¹¹ Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone? ¹² Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

This isn’t especially descriptive and this isn’t especially prescriptive. How do I term what I just read? In this passage from Ecclesiastes, it is giving me wisdom. It’s a general guide for living and it has a point for me to think on, and it includes a metaphor.

There are thousands of other things to know, and studying the Bible is a lifelong adventure. In addition to wisdom, some other types of formats used in the Bible are narratives, poetry, legal renderings, historical records, genealogies, prophetic utterances, apocalyptic writings, biographical entries, personal letters, drama, and so on. We have to understand all of these and properly apply them in context or we are going to get off on useless tangents. So pay attention as you read your Bible.

One more thing though – you can’t apply these interpretation methods for reading your Bible unless you… unless you… unless you actually read your Bible.

So let’s go on with the line of Cain and from what read in the next verse, you’ll probably understand why I just gave you the previous lesson in Bible interpretation –

¹⁹ Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. ²⁰

This is the first recorded case of polygamy in the Bible and every Bible commentary that I’ve read denounces it as unnatural and wicked. But the Bible doesn’t make any such commentary, ever, and therefore every thing beyond the account is the personal opinion of the scholar and is left without biblical support.

The only thing we have thus far in the Bible to set the pattern for physical relationships is what it says in chapter 2 verse 24 – “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, the Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman… “one man and one woman.” Do you know it never says that? Never.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul quotes the same verse, “the two shall become one flesh” to say that a man who lies with a prostitute is one with her. If he sleeps with fifty, they would still be “one flesh.”

Again, if we were to take that he shall “be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” as prescriptive, then we would have to say that the Bible mandates marriage for every person. But it doesn’t. In the same way, just because it says “joined to his wife” in no way negates more than one wife.

In the Law of Moses allowances are made for men with multiple wives and how they are to be handled. Throughout the Old Testament men had numerous wives. King Solomon had 700 and 300 concubines. David, the beloved of the Lord had lots of wives and, the Lord gave him many of them. In 2 Samuel 12, it says –

“I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!”

And in the New Testament, Paul restricts only elders and deacons of a church to a single-wife relationship. In other words, he makes no other commentary on the matter for others which, by default, implicitly allows it.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m only making a point about how to interpret the Bible, I’m not condoning polygamy, but remember our short lesson on Bible study. Is it prescriptive, is it descriptive, and context, context, context. When taken as a whole, in the context of the Bible, what Lamech has done by taking two wives is not biblically unacceptable.

One more thing we need to do when evaluating the Bible may be the most important rule after evaluating the context, and it very well may be as important – We need to set aside our biases, likes, and dislikes, and our presuppositions. We need to come to the text as a blank slate and determine what the Lord is trying to tell us.

In the case of Lamech, it isn’t telling us at all about the unsoundness of polygamy. In fact, we have no idea who else had more than one wife at that time. The Bible is completely silent on the matter. What it does tell is that his eyes were set on pleasure and worldly things.

Anyone looking to have two wives is looking at physical pleasure more than reasonable living. I have one and that is far, far more than reasonable.

The importance of mentioning the wives is based on their names, not specifically on them both being his wives. How do we know this? Because their names are mentioned – Adah and Zillah.

Throughout the Bible, when a name is mentioned, it’s because it’s relevant to the story. Only one daughter of Israel is mentioned by name and yet Genesis 45 twice mentions his “daughters,” meaning he had more than one. His daughter Dinah is mentioned by name because she is relevant to the story.

The importance of these two women surrounds the meaning of their names as well as who their sons are and what they did. Their sons brought about the beginnings of a stable civilization that became a complete culture, even as we know one today.

And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. ²¹ His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. ²² And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

In the birth of sons to these two women, both wives of Lamech, we have every aspect of a material civilization. We have both the pastoral life for feeding people, we have music and culture, and we have industrialization.

Our modern thinking says the Iron Age occurred after the Bronze Age. The Early Iron Age began, according to archeologists, about 1200BC, but the Bible says that man was working with iron even before the flood. I’d never even considered this until a Bible study when Janice Alley pointed it out to me.

Early man wasn’t the Neolithic Neanderthal that modern science makes them out to be. Instead, they were a highly civilized society which had formed a noteworthy culture.

Adah had a son named Jabal who is the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother was Jubal who was the first of those who play the harp and the flute. The other wife of Lamech was named Zillah and she had a son named Tubal-Cain who was an instructor in bronze and iron. Finally in these verses it says that Tubal-Cain had a sister named Naamah.

Out of the many people who surely came from Cain, these are the only ones given by name – and of them all, the one that may seem most puzzling is Naamah who is mentioned by name, but who isn’t recorded as having done anything else; her name means loveliness.

What we can determine is that the people mentioned in the line of Cain after Enoch –Irad, Mehujael, and Methushael – each of these is intended to lead us to these names in these few verses – Lamech, Adah, Zillah, Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-Cain, and Naamah.

As I said, Mehujael and Methushael maintain the name of God even if it is only the unknown God, El, and not the specific LORD. After them the names go down a different path. Here are the translations: Adah means “pleasure;” Zillah means to “shadow” or “hide;” Lamech means “captive;” Jabal means “stream of water;” Jubal means “river;” Tubal-Cain means “you will be brought of Cain;” and Naamah means “loveliness.”

These names are innocuous by themselves, but taken together, they show a worldly outlook. The name Naamah in particular will only come to full meaning when we get to Genesis 6 and God’s intent to destroy the world by flood.

The Scofield reference notes say: This “…civilization may have been as splendid as that of Greece or Rome, but the divine judgment is according to the moral state, not the material.”

The line of Cain and their names reflect people in love with the world rather than God. This is the lesson that we need to take away from these verses and I can’t think of anything more appropriate for us to consider in the world today.

We have music at our fingertips, every convenience we could ever desire, and our eyes can gaze on the physical attractiveness of the opposite sex in ways that weren’t even imagined just a few short years ago. All of these things follow the pattern of the line of Cain.

The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about the line of Cain and tells us that they were exceedingly wicked, intolerable in war, and vehement in robberies. He says that they acted unjustly and were quick to murder.

We’ll see in Chapter 6 how these things brought the world to judgment and unless things turn around soon, which doesn’t seem likely, we’re going to be heading into the time of tribulation prophesied throughout the Bible. The Day of the Lord is at hand.

III. The Sins of the Father

²³ Then Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have killed a man for wounding me, Even a young man for hurting me ²⁴ If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Cain was a murderer and it’s easy to see that children normally follow the pattern of life they see in their parents. There are always exceptions, but the line of Cain isn’t one of them.

These two verses which make up Lamech’s ode form what is considered perfect Hebrew styled poetry. It is broken up into pairs of lines and each contains parallelism, or the repetition of a thought. Nothing else is recorded like it earlier in the Bible and therefore it is certainly the oldest poem ever recorded.

Now we can add poetry to the magnificent list of achievements of Cain’s descendents. However, unlike much of the poetry recorded elsewhere in the Bible which talk about a relationship with God, internal struggles of sin, and other higher thoughts, this poem shows us the worldly outlook of Lamech.

He addresses his two wives. He demands their attention. He took the life of someone who had only wounded him. He implicitly boasts of his strength because he was older than the person he killed. And he justifies himself by claiming he would be avenged.

True to the Bible’s symmetry, there’s a pattern between this murder and the destruction of Babylon in Revelation 19 – “For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.”

Vengeance is marked out for Cain and Lamech claims the right to it for shedding blood in the 4^th chapter of the Bible. This was in the land east of Eden. And in the 4^th chapter from the end of the Bible, God avenges the blood of the saints shed by Babylon, the land east of God’s land, Israel. What the devil and his seed work in iniquity, God judges and triumphs over in righteousness.

IV. The Name of the LORD

In our text verse today, I read from the psalms –

Blessed be the name of the LORD From this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its going down The LORD’s name is to be praised.

Quoting this seems to have little to do with the line of Cain. However, the last verses of Chapter 4 return to the godly line of Adam through Seth and the notion that there is still hope in the world and that the Lord is still in control of the ages –

²⁵ And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, “For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.”

After the diversion into the line of Cain, the Bible returns in this verse to the hope of the woman and for all godly people since her. Some time after the death of Abel, Eve has another son. Instead of boastfully claiming that she had acquired a man with the help of the LORD (or Jehovah), she calmly acknowledges that God (or Elohim) has appointed another son for her.

His name Seth means “appointed” and his selection was necessitated because of the death of Abel. As the Bible notes though, Seth was appointed not by Eve, but by God. God is the one who did the selection and chose the person.

She said, he is “instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” If you see what’s going on, Eve is saying that God – the Creator, has replaced what human wickedness took away. It is a veiled reference to the work of Christ who would overrule the wickedness of the devil.

And she uses the term zera or “seed” for the child. Unlike Cain, she knew that the promised seed of the woman that would crush the serpent’s head would come through Seth.

Even in this early chapter of Genesis, we can see the concept of divine election being hinted at. The work is from God, the work is of God, and the work is at God’s prerogative. Man’s choices and works are left out of the equation. Seth is God’s son by election.

Seth’s selection by God and that fact that he is God’s son by election needs to be remembered because it will clear up some very difficult and misunderstood issues in Chapter 6.

²⁶ And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the LORD.

Here we are at the last verse of chapter 4. A son of the godly line of the Messiah has been born and the line continues on through one of his own sons, Enosh, which means “man” in the mortal sense; someone who can die, or a miserable man. I’m telling you this in hopes that you’ll pay attention to these names as they have an amazing significance in the sermon ahead…You may be surprised.

At the time of Enosh’s birth it says that men “began to call on the name of the LORD.” This then is given in direct contrast to the preceding verses of Cain’s line which was following worldly pursuit – The name of the LORD is never mentioned in that account.

Everything about them is centered on what they did and shows their worldly outlook, but the line of Seth is contrasted. To call on the name of the LORD is to invoke His name in worship, praise, thanksgiving, and prayer.

And who is this veiled Lord, or Jehovah, of the Old Testament? Paul tells us in the book of Philippians –

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Line of Cain

Cain wandered off and built a fortified town
He named it Enoch after his own son
After Enoch, came more men of worldly renown
They knew how to work and also how to have fun

Lamech, the seventh man down that wicked line
Had two wives to keep him happy all the time

For Mr. Lamech they bore three sons and a girl
Who became a settled culture in the eastern land
Jabal had livestock and Jubal gave music a whirl
Tubal-Cain worked in metals and his sister’s looks were grand

Lamech wrote a poem to comfort his two wives
After he killed a young man for merely wounding him
This is the first poem ever written in human’s lives
And it shows the wicked effects of the ungodly’s sin

“If Cain is avenged sevenfold then me even more”
But what about the poor guy lying dead at your door

If this were the way things would always be
Then let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die
But God had something else going on, you see
He had another line of godly men, so don’t you cry

God replaced Abel, whom Cain slew in the field
With another son, by the name of Seth
Through this son the Holy Seed would yield
The One to conquer evil and triumph over death

Again this godly line brought a son named Enosh
And more would follow until would come the King
By His precious blood all men could wash
And be cleansed from sin and every wicked thing

When men called on the name Jehovah the eternal Lord
They were only looking forward to that great King
And now we call on Jesus the bearer of the sword
The fullness of time has come and to His name we do sing

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus – the great and awesome Rock
The One who reveals to us the Father we cannot see
And now we wait as the moments tick and tock
Until He returns for His church and blissful eternity

Until that time of renewal we earnestly wait
Yes until the time we pass through heaven’s pearly gate

When we behold the glory of the King
And to the praise of Jesus we shall ever sing

Hallelujah and Amen…

For next week please read Genesis 5:1-32 (The Generations of Adam)

 

 

Genesis 4:1-16
East of Eden

Introduction: In 1952, John Steinbeck wrote the novel East of Eden. It’s a book which wanders through the subjects of depravity, beneficence, and love. It details the human struggle for acceptance, greatness, and freedom and it also relates man’s capacity for self-destruction.

East of Eden ties these themes together with a heap of references and parallels to the Bible, but especially Genesis Chapter 4. In the book, Steinbeck uses quite a few allusions to Cain and Abel. An interesting one is his use of the first letters of Cain and Abel – C & A – for the names of the main characters – Charles and Adam, Caleb and Aron, Cathy Ames, etc.

Throughout the book, there are all kinds of fun parallels and contrasts to the biblical account, some of which are so well concealed that you really need to pay attention to every detail. For example one of the characters, Charles, gets a dark scar on his forehead while trying to move a boulder from his fields.

In Genesis 4, as we’ll see today, Cain is given a mark by God. If we compare other marks on people in the Bible, it’s a good assumption this mark was on Cain’s forehead as well. In another account in the book, a different “C” character, Caleb, is described as having a more dark and sinister appearance than the character Aron – again, a parallel we’ll see today.

If you pay attention, you can see all kinds of little details that Steinbeck placed carefully in the book for the person who is studious enough to find them.

Despite being considered a great book, East of Eden hasn’t come close to the total number of sales of the Bible, nor has it lasted through thousands of years like the Genesis account has.

In the end, it is the Bible which is the source of understanding human history, human nature, and the only highway we can take to return to that wondrous spot we left so long ago. Everything else is, after all, a knock off of the original and was printed east of Eden, outside the Garden of Delight.

Text Verse: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. 1 Samuel 15:22, 23

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Great Expectations and Dashed Hopes – Verses 1 & 2

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.” ² Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

In these two simple verses, we see the hope of a woman looking for her return to paradise and then her dejection when she realizes that she must have misunderstood what God had previously said.

In His curse of the serpent, God said this to him –

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.”

Eve was standing right there and heard it all. She had heard that her Seed would be the One to undo the treacherous works of the devil. When she named her first son Cain, or Qayin, she exclaimed, “I have acquired a man with the Lord.”

The word “acquired” is from the Hebrew word qaniti and it’s where Qayin comes from. As we travel through the Bible, you’ll see this pattern occur innumerable times. A sentence will give the name of a person and that name will usually be based on another word within the same sentence.

There’s a quite a bit involved in what Eve said here. She said, “I have acquired a man with the Lord.” The Hebrew word for “with” in this sentence is rather important. It is translated from the word eth. However, another word could have been used – im. The difference between these two words is immense and it signifies what she was thinking.

In saying she had acquired a man “with” the Lord, she was taking credit for what she thought would be the delivery of her Deliverer.

Think of it this way, if I say I’m writing a book with a typewriter, then the typewriter isn’t really doing anything. Instead I am doing the work and the typewriter is a passive participant in the process.

However, if I say I’m writing a book with my brother Ethan, then he is an active participant in the process and deserves more credit than just supplying the ink to the paper. We both put in the effort and we both deserve whatever benefits come from it.

This is exactly what Eve was claiming when she said, eth instead of im. It’s me… “I’ve acquired a man and I did it with the LORD. We are working together to bring in the Deliverer.”

There’s a lesson in this and it carries throughout the rest of the Bible. In the book of Jonah we read this right at the end of Chapter 2 – “Salvation is of the LORD.”

In Ephesians, Paul explains it this way –For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Eve’s idea that she had something, anything at all in fact, to do with her salvation was completely misguided. The Lord is the One who works out our salvation and He did it and does it in His own timing. There will be no boasting when we stand before God and proclaim what He alone has done for us.

As Mary wisely said when she was told she would bear the Savior of the world – “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

There was no boasting and no claim of participation in the effort. In her song of praise at what would occur, she places all the credit on God alone –

“My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. ⁴⁸ For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. ⁴⁹ For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.

Mary is mentioned only a few more times in the Bible and no note of attention is drawn to her. After Acts Chapter 1, she is never mentioned again.

Going back to Eve, we see that immediately after naming Cain the very next words are… words of dejection and hopelessness –

“Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us how old Cain was when Abel was born, but he was old enough for Eve to see that he wasn’t the one to restore her to Eden. We can know this simply by the meaning of Abel’s name. Abel, or Hevel, means “breath.” This is the kind of breath that you watch disappear on a cold day – a mere mist.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, this same word, hevel, is translated as “vanity” in the King James Version and “meaningless” in the NIV.

By the time Abel arrived, her outlook on life had gone from being the boastful woman who had a part of her own salvation to the unhappy surrender of a dejected soul that would spend the rest of her days in life under the sun… never returning to the bliss she had known in the Garden of Eden. All was vanity… disappearing vapor in a cold and meaningless world.

To finish out verse 2, we read that Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. In this thought, we can’t find any fault in the choice of profession for either of them. Moses, David, and a host of other noted biblical figures tended flocks like Abel, but numerous others tilled the ground or worked in agriculture.

Boaz, the great and heroic figure of the book of Ruth was a tiller of the ground and the prophet Amos was a both a sheep breeder and a tender of the sycamore fig tree. What is apparent is that they worked with their hands just as Adam’s sentence in the Garden of Eden indicated they would.

Both of these professions, tending flocks and harvesting grain, are used symbolically throughout the Bible to give us insights into the workings of God in general and the work of Jesus in particular. If you follow the agricultural themes closely, you will better understand the Creator’s dealings with man.

II. The Offering of Faith – Verses 3-6 

³ And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. ⁴ Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, ⁵ but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
⁶ So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

The opinions on why God respected one offering and didn’t respect the other are varied and are highly argued over. I reviewed some of the most noted commentators in Christian history, and many of them give note to Jewish sources going back to antiquity and there is no happy resolution to be found there.

The only proper way to determine why Abel’s offering was accepted is to let the Bible interpret the Bible and unfortunately, none of the commentaries I read fully do this.

I’ll note the two prevalent views that have been given so you can see how people look at what happened. The first is inferred from the terminology given in the verse – that “Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD” whereas “Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat.”

The terminology of Abel’s offering being the “firstborn of his flock” has lead to the thought that Cain’s offering wasn’t of the firstfruits of the harvest and therefore wasn’t the first and best. Because of this, Abel’s offering was accepted – it was a good offering, and Cain’s wasn’t because it wasn’t a good offering.

This isn’t a bad interpretation, but it must be inferred. It also needs to infer that this was the time of the firstfruit of the harvest, something we can’t know from the account. If it wasn’t, then there’s no way we can assign this particular guilt to Cain.

For all we know, they made the offering in the middle of the harvest season. All that it says is that he “brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD.” Anything else must be inferred.

The second opinion about why one offering was accepted and the other wasn’t is that Abel’s offering was a blood sacrifice – one for atonement of sins and therefore it was accepted by God, but Cain’s wasn’t and therefore it was unacceptable.

To substantiate this view, it’s noted that God killed an animal to clothe Adam and Eve and therefore the precedent was made at that time. Unfortunately, this reads much more into the text than is given, and when the Hebrew is reviewed it becomes a view which cannot be substantiated.

God provided the atonement, or covering, for Adam and Eve, but nothing more is told us in that account. To state that this was to be the precedent for future generations is again, inserting our personal thoughts into the text.

Secondly, in both offerings, the Hebrew word minchah is used. In the Law of Moses, a minchah is only a non-blood sacrifice, but the offering of both Cain and Abel are called minchah.

It would be inappropriate to insert the Law of Moses into a date prior to the Law of Moses. And even if we could, because of the term used, both are to be considered equally acceptable offerings – they are both minchah. Grain offerings are not only acceptable under the Mosaic Law, they are mandated. If God accepted them, and they have the same term applied here, then one being a blood sacrifice and one not being a blood sacrifice is irrelevant.

And finally, each offering came from the livelihood of the individual. There is no other direction given in the account or before it to indicate that they had to cross the lines of their profession in order to make an offering. If this was the case, then something important would have, again, been left out of the story.

But we can know, with one hundred percent certainty why one offering was accepted and the other wasn’t. All we need to do is look elsewhere in the Bible to get the answer.

Of all the commentaries I read, only one came close to the correct reason. It noted that in the other options, something extra has to be read into the text. When we do that, then interpretation is left completely up to us and so the Bible means whatever we decide.

This is an important lesson to remember. Unless something is painfully evident from the text, we need to state opinion as opinion and not jump to conclusions without evidence. This commentary was right, but even it added in thoughts which aren’t supported by the verse.

In the end, the Bible in Hebrews 11 answers why one offering was accepted and the other wasn’t – “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.”

The offering was an offering of faith and it is the faith which made the offering more excellent. If you understand this you will understand the importance of faith in both testaments of the Bible.

It wasn’t faith that made Abel bring a more excellent sacrifice. Instead it was faith that made the sacrifice more excellent. If you can understand this difference, then you’re on the highway to the most complete and friendly walk possible with your Creator.

The rest of the Bible, in both testaments, bears this out. It isn’t the type of offering and it isn’t the amount of offering that God respects. It is the faith behind the offering. Here are two examples and we’ll move on –

(1) With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? ⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸ He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:6-8

The sacrifices mentioned are exactly what the law asked for. In fact, in Isaiah 1, these mandatory sacrifices are said to make the LORD weary. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats. ¹²’When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, To trample My courts?’”

Who required these sacrifices? God did! And yet he rejected them because they lacked faith.

God couldn’t care diddly about the type or amount of offering if the heart of the individual isn’t right with Him.

(2) Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. ⁴² Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. ⁴³ So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; ⁴⁴ for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.” Mark 12:41-44

The Lord looks for faith in His faithless creatures, so even a little bit will do.

III. A Faithless Life, verses 8-12

Cain’s offering was lacking faith and the Bible bears out that the rest of his existence was one of lacking faith as well. His faithless deeds testified against him then, and they still testify today – 6000 years later.

⁸ Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.  ⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” ¹⁰ And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. ¹¹ So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”

Cain was the first recorded male born in human history and if you want to reflect on how ingrained sin is in each of us, just look to this account and you can tell. This first recorded son of Adam was a murderer and a liar as we’ve seen right here.

Another thing these verses tell us is the confirmation of the premise that all human beings are born into sin, born spiritually dead, and born separated from God. We have inherited Adam’s death in at least three ways – legally, potentially, and seminally. How can we tell? Because the Bible teaches that it is so.

First, the very fact that Cain murdered and lied indicates he inherited Adam’s sin.

Second, Abel died when he was struck by his brother, but the Bible doesn’t record Abel having committed any sin. But the wages of sin is death. Therefore, if Abel died and didn’t resurrect, then he must have inherited Adam’s sin or the Bible has left us without needed information concerning some other sin Abel committed.

Third, both sons – Cain and Abel – presented offerings to the Lord and there is no record of a command for them to have done so. Such offerings can’t be related to either a command or to human invention. These first recorded offerings occurred after the fall and take separation from God as a given. They were design specifically to satisfy the innate desire to restore man’s separation from God.

In other words, the entire account shows us, without any hint of a doubt, that these sons of Adam were born in sin and were separated from God by their spiritually dead state.

After the rejection of his offering, Cain set the terrible pattern of sin which has infected many souls since then – He became defiant in that sin. Adam and Eve were truly scared about what they’d done and tried to cover things up. And eventually they even tried to pass the buck about their deed.

But Cain, when he was confronted showed the hardness of his heart and his defiant attitude by first lying – “I don’t know” he said, and then getting snippy at God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The question is actually a good one for all of us and should be addressed. Are we our brother’s keeper? The answer by necessity is “yes and no.” So there is a slight taste of truth in Cain’s answer.

He wasn’t responsible for his brother in the ultimate sense. Abel could go wandering off with the flocks and Cain was under no obligation to watch over him at the expense of his own fields and his own harvest.

And we aren’t responsible in any complete sense for anyone else who has right reason and a healthy body. They are their own keepers and their own problem. The things they do are from their own free will. To limit that in another person is to subject them to slavery and to deplete the very thing that allows them to be human.

On the other hand, we are our brother’s keeper. We’re under the obligation to keep from harming others maliciously and even taking care of what we harm unintentionally. We’re also under the obligation to not hinder others from determining their own paths and avenues of happiness.

And finally, we are to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves. Both testaments bear these things out and so yes we are our brother’s keeper and no, we aren’t our brother’s keeper. Everything in context, and everything to the glory of God.

The response Cain gave though is a cunning attempt to hide any culpability at all in the matter of his brother. It is the response of a selfish, brutal, and hate-filled soul. Unless God called him to account, his murderous attitude would truly become the only standard on which he or anyone else could develop.

In essence, this first recorded sin after the fall would become standard operating procedure for all humanity. “God doesn’t see and it’s all up to me.”

But the LORD knew and acted, and the world was diverted, at least for a time, from turning to complete and absolute wickedness. Unfortunately, as we’ll see by Chapter 6, wickedness is an ongoing problem and needs to be dealt with more than once.

After his less than kind response to the LORD, Cain was told that the blood of Abel cried out from the ground. The word “blood” is the Hebrew word dame or “bloods.” Does this mean that the blood itself cried out, or is it as early Jewish writings understand the verse – that his posterity was crying out – a posterity that actually existed or would have existed if they had been born.

This same type of terminology is given in 2 King 9 when speaking of the death of Naboth, who was killed for a field that King Ahab wanted. There it says, “Surely I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons,’ says the LORD…”

This actually makes a lot of sense because when Abel sacrificed, it may have been for him and his family; just as we see in the book of Job. This is even more validated in a few verses by what Cain said after his sentence is pronounced – a sentence which he brought on by his own actions.

We finish with, “The LORD said to him, “So now you are cursed from the earth…” and “When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” This is the sentence of Cain for his actions and his response shows how truly hard his heart was.

IV. East of Eden, verses 13-16

¹³ And Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! ¹⁴ Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” ¹⁵ And the LORD said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. ¹⁶ Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

Cain was worried about his own punishment, which was less than it deserved, when his younger brother, who was better than he, lay dead in the ground. He was left to aimlessly wander the earth as a vagabond and even the ground wouldn’t yield for him. Whatever he sowed would fail.

The Bible makes a contrast between the sowing of unrighteousness with the harvesting of faith. Cain sowed the ground with the blood of his brother because he was jealous of Abel. But as we saw, it was by Abel’s faith that his offering was acceptable to God.

Cain’s lack of faith, instead of being converted through that lesson, led to the murder of his brother and that would result in no harvest at all, even for the duration of his life.

We have exactly this same thing going on in the world today. Christians are killed in huge numbers for their faith by the modern spiritual successors to Cain – the “peaceful” religion of islam. But in the end, those faithful Christians will stand in judgment over those who kill the body but who can’t harm the soul. The way of Cain leads to death and the faith of Abel will last for eternity.

After his sentencing, Cain cried out “I shall be hidden from Your face.” The greatest honor that can be bestowed on a person is to have the face of God shine on them. For this reason, the High Priestly Prayer not only includes it, but it states it twice –

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”’

In 1 Peter it says the reciprocal is true for evildoers – “For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.”

And in 1 Corinthians it says that because of Jesus we are receiving the reflection of the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces.

Cain understood this in his limited way and cried out at the loss – a loss which he had brought upon himself. Even to this day, Cain is the biblical example of the wicked son who remains forever out of the favor of the Lord.

A couple minutes ago I said that it’s possible the “blood of Abel crying out from the ground” may actually be referring to his offspring. Cain’s next response may validate that. After noting that he was hidden from the Lord’s face, he says that “it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”

Obviously anyone alive on earth during Cain’s life would be a rather close relative to Abel, but it’s most likely that one of his own sons would try to repay Cain for what he did. Cain’s remark then very well could be his fear of this.

Despite his murder, we see a great demonstration of the LORD’s mercy. In order to protect him, the Lord said “… whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.”

The mark placed on Cain is different from other marks placed on people later in the Bible. The word for “mark” is owth, which means a “sign.”

This was a visible mark and a sign to anyone who would attempt to kill him. If they did, they would receive vengeance seven-fold, or “completely.” There would be no mercy given for the murderer of this murderer.

Once the sentence was pronounced, we finish off with the verse that says he “went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.” The word Nod means “wandering” and this fulfills the sentence given by the Lord – that he would be a vagabond and a wanderer.

We can look to the Bible for modern parallels too. Cain went “East of Eden” the place where the presence of the Lord is. On the east side of Eden is where the cherubim were placed to guard access to the garden. But in a symbolic parallel, Jerusalem is where the Temple stood; the place where God dwelt.

Babylon, where Iraq is today, is east of Jerusalem and it is the city which is biblically in spiritual opposition to Jerusalem. When the Israelites disobeyed God, they were sent eastward, to Babylon for the duration of their punishment. Today, this same area is a stronghold of the muslim empire, and is the key force against both the restored people of Israel and the people of God in Christ.

On a greater level though, Babylon is the symbol of all false religions and spiritual opposition to the truth of the gospel. There is a spiritual battle – the battle of ungodly Cain and godly Abel – going on even to this day in the unseen world around us.

The sad story we read in Genesis 4 will only be completely behind us when Satan is finally cast into the Lake of Fire. Until then, human wickedness and the forces of the devil will continue to fight against the truth of God and His word, which are received by faith and demonstrated in offerings of faith by the people of God.

Life East of Eden

Eve was elated – a son to undo this mess
Look at the deed that I have done!!!
It was me who did it… and the LORD too I guess
With the Lord I have acquired a son

Life will be great and life will be fun
Back to life under the heavens, no more life under the sun

“Oh no” cried Eve, another boy to feed, life is just a breath
I guess I’m stuck here under the sun
His name is Abel, he’s no conquer of death
It’s all so meaningless… my hopes are undone

I’m Cain and from my tilling I’ll give God a slice
I’m going to buy His favor with my stuff
My name is Abel and I tend the flocks, they are so nice
But even the choicest and the best is not enough

I’m so pleased with your offering of faith young Abel
I will bless you with abundance at your table

But Cain what you’ve given wasn’t from your heart
I think you’d better go and make a brand new start

Cain murdered his brother and was cursed from the earth
And set the example for an unrighteous soul
Instead of eternal hope from a new birth
His life ended under the devil’s control

Cain spent his years as a vagabond in the land
Wandering aimlessly and without a hope
Instead of fruits and grains, he was left with barren sand
All because Cain was a faithless dope

But God had mercy even on that murderous wretch
He gave him a mark to protect his life
As he wandered for a very long stretch
A man cursed from the earth, a man of strife

Will you be like Cain and follow the devil?
Losing your soul, your most valuable part
Or like Abel will you be on the level
And in Jesus Christ, make a brand new start

Come to fountain and drink waters of life
Eat of the manna offered freely to all
Set aside your life of toil and strife
On the name of Jesus it’s time for you to call

Just so you know before I finish, Cain was given a mark to protect his earthly life, but for those who call on Jesus, the last chapter of the Bible says we too will have a mark. This mark will be on our foreheads and it will be the very name of God – an eternal reminder that we have been purchased by the most precious substance in the universe – the blood of Jesus Christ.

And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. ⁴ They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. Revelation 22:3, 4

Next week we’ll look at Genesis 4:17-26 – The line of Cain. Take a couple minutes tonight and read those verses and meditate on them throughout the week.

Genesis 3:16-24
Introducing Donuts, the End of the Garden of God

Introduction: Honey is mentioned 60 times in the Bible and it’s used as the Bible’s prime example of sweetness for comparison to other things. For example, in the book of Proverbs, we’re warned about the sweetness of a seductress –

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil;
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword. Proverbs 5:3, 4

And in the Song of Songs, King Solomon makes a similar comparison about the beauty of the voice and words of an upright woman, his beloved –

Your lips, O my spouse,
Drip as the honeycomb;
Honey and milk are under your tongue;
And the fragrance of your garments
Is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

Honey comes from the work of bees and bees come from the mind of God. The splendor and complexity of a single bumblebee far outweighs the possibility of evolution, and the work they do fills our lips with delight. Here are some of honey’s amazing benefits –

It’s nature’s energy booster because it’s a great natural source of carbohydrates which provide strength and energy to the body. It’s known for its effectiveness in instantly boosting performance, endurance, and also reducing muscle fatigue.

It has glucose which gives an immediate energy boost, and it has fructose which is absorbed more slowly providing sustained energy.

Honey is an immunity system builder too. It has antioxidants and anti-bacterial properties which can help improve your digestive system and help you stay healthy and fight disease. Eating local honey can actually help a person develop immunities to pollen and hay fever caused by the surrounding spores. The bees produce ready-made inoculants for the pollen sufferer.

Honey can also help with cuts and burns, sore throats, sleeplessness and other things as well.

In contrast to honey, there is the donut. Honey comes from the mind of God through His agents of pollination – the bees. On the other hand, donuts are a product of man’s devising and ingenuity.

Where honey is abundantly beneficial to us, donuts are obviously less so. But their sweet deliciousity can’t be denied and their totally tempting titillating tastiness tries and tests our taste buds at the expense of our overall slim and trim appearance.

So what do donuts have to do with the Genesis account? Very little to a person who speaks only English, but if you understand Hebrew, there may be a moral to the story hidden in the donut.

Here are the ingredients for a simple glazed donut:

* 3/4 cup scalded milk
* 1/3 cup granulated sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 envelope of active dry yeast
* 1/4 cup warm water
* 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
* 1/3 cup butter
* 2 eggs, beaten
* oil for deep frying
* 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 6 tablespoons milk

Text Verse: The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward. Psalm 19:9-11

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Donuts, Woman’s Second Desire

Donuts are pretty tempting to me and I could make a breakfast of them every day. Ladies aren’t exempt from desiring their delightful yumminess either, but there is something else which the Bible says a lady desires –

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.”

There are several parts to the sentencing of the woman and they’re given in the form of couplets. The first two apply to her mothering role and the second two concern her role as a wife. What we see here is that, just as in the curse of the serpent, the women will be the bearer of offspring and that offspring are sure to come.

The woman, having been present at the curse of the serpent, was certainly excited at the prospect of having a child. The serpent was told that her seed would crush his head and the woman would wait in anticipation for that to happen – probably expecting it right away. This isn’t speculation, but something we’ll see in Chapter 4.

Until then, she was sentenced to the multiplication of sorrows in and through her conception and all the way through the birthing process. Unfortunately, the woman finds out that the curse of the serpent and all of its promise of a coming Seed to crush his head will come at a cost to her.

It’s been noted that women suffer more pain in the birthing process than any other creatures of the earth and this is certainly a result of the curse pronounced here. There is no other known reason for it.

During and after having a baby, women have mental troubles, sorrows, pain, nausea, food disorders, dizziness, head pains, teeth pains, some have fainting spells, and so on. And of course there is the constant worry about miscarriages, the health of the baby, will she be able to handle things, and on and on.

And all of this leads right up to the time that the baby is born with the birth pains growing in frequency and strength. Of course, there is a time, a short time, when that is forgotten, Jesus said –

“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 a human being has been born into the world.” John 16:21

After the joy of the moment though, reality comes back and the trials of conception and birth are replaced with the joys, and the trials of raising the child.

In addition to the trials, pains, and numbers of conception, the woman’s sentence includes that her desire will be for her husband and that he would rule over her. If you read commentaries on this, they go all over the place.

Some say it is speaking of the sexual desires a woman has for her husband and others deny this completely. But because the sentence is in the form of a couplet the text itself identifies which is correct.

Since the fall, in almost all less developed cultures, woman has been more a less a slave to her husband. The rule of selfishness prevails there and the weaker inevitably serves the stronger. Going as far as slavery is wholly unintended by God and cultures which follow this avenue divert from His overall original intent.

On the other hand, equality in marital decisions is also unintended by God. Cultures which follow this pattern, or those that reject marriage completely in order to avoid the rule of men, are also divergent from what God intended.

Rather, the rule of man over the woman is to be one who is responsible for the wife and the family. The woman is to defer to her husband’s decisions when they conflict with her own wishes.

In the New Testament, we see the proper order of this relationship carefully noted by the apostles –

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her… Ephesians 5:22-25

Living as husband and wife within the Christian context should restore each to their proper place and put them in line with God’s intention for the husband and wife.

II. If You Want Donuts, You’ll Have to Work for Them

As we noted earlier, honey is a gift of God to man…not of works. Donuts on the other hand require work. We have to get the ingredients, mix them properly, bake the dough, and all that stuff. In the same way, man would go from honey to donuts; from resting in the garden to tilling the soil. The end of the garden of God had come for the man…

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.
¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
¹⁹ In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”
²⁰ And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

After cursing the serpent and sentencing the woman, the Lord God now turns His attention and judgment upon the man. Yes, the end of the garden of God had come. Instead of supply an abundance to fill their every need and to provide them with endless delight, there would be something different.

In the woman’s sentence was the multiplication of conception which is actually considered a blessing in the Bible. In the 127^th Psalm we read this –

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;

More children are a part of the sentence and a part of the grace given by God at the same time. The earth would be less giving and more unforgiving, and so feeding more children would be an added burden. At the same time, if he could sustain the children until they were old enough, they would be a part of the man’s help in fighting his war with the soil and taking care of him in his old age.

And the soil is the key thought not only of the man’s sentencing, but one of the key thoughts throughout the rest of the Bible.

The ground is cursed and will no longer bear fruit from heaven. Instead it will bear fruit from the serpent’s throne, from the spot where he breathes out his commands. And his throne is a hard rule. Man would have to toil, and he still does to this day, to get food to come up from it.

“All the days of your life” implies that it will always be this way for fallen man. Not just during the life of Adam, but all the days of man. Water, instead of coming up from the ground as a mist, flows from aquifers and needs to be channeled, carried, or pumped to where it’s needed.

And not only would the soil bring forth fruit reluctantly, but in contrast it would willingly bring up thorns and thistles. If you don’t actively take care of your garden or lawn, what is the first thing that happens? Up come weeds. Once weeds are established and they take away the water from the weaker plants, then thorns and thistles pop up because they can handle more arid conditions.

The Bible speaks of the blessing of harvests resulting in 30, 60, or a 100 fold crops for edible food like wheat, but this type of productivity takes work and care. On the other hand, there is a species of thistle known as the Acanthum vulgare which produces more than 100 heads and each contains from 3 to 400 seeds – without any tending or care by man.

Supposing they produce a medium of 80 beads and each contains only 300 seeds, then its first crop would equal 24,000. When these are sown, it could potentially be 576 million. A third time would result in almost 14 billion. Another harvest at this rate would be about 332 quadrillion. One more repetition would result in enough to sow every planet in the solar system with nothing else but this one type of thistle. Oh how easy do the curses afflict our labors!

This curse even resulted in the sandspurs which line coastlines around the world, even up to the ocean itself. The sandiest soil, which can’t absorb any water at all, will still support these horrific little monsters.

Verse 18 also says “you shall eat of the herb of the field.” This is a commentary that when the crops fail and the trees don’t have fruit, we will look for food even as the animals do – from the herbs of the field. This is the state of fallen man because of the effects of one sin committed in ignorance.

In His final act of sentencing the man, the Lord says, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

In the sweat of your face or more directly “your nose’’ – the Hebrew word beze-et appekha indicates the conditions of labor for the laborer. Our heads sweat a lot and as we work in the field or at other jobs, our heads are most often pointed down.

Because of this the sweat runs around our head, onto our face, and down the nose and right into the place we’re working. In other words, we’re symbolically watering the very ground we’re cultivating. “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.”

And finally in verse 19 we come to the sad words revealed in the loss of access to the Tree of Life –

“For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

The Lord God formed man out of the dust and it’s what we consist of. When the spark of life which animates us leaves our body, entropy takes over and we inevitably return to the very dust from which we came.

Before we leave the sentencing of the woman and Adam, we need to step back and look at their expected torments from a higher light. A Deliverer was promised in the curse of the serpent – one who would crush the serpent’s head. This same Deliverer is referred to throughout their sentencing as well –

“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception…” Jesus was known as a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering and the one whose soul was in labor – all of this in order to bring about children for God.

“In pain you shall bring forth children…” Jesus suffered at the cross to bring “many sons to glory.” In pain He brought forth God’s children.

“Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you…” The desire of the Bride of Christ is for her Husband and Jesus is the One who will rule over His bride, the church whom He purchased with His own blood.

“Cursed is the ground for your sake…” In Isaiah, Jesus is said to be a root out of dry ground and later in Galatians it says that He became a curse for us. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

“In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.” In Isaiah it says, “He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.” Jesus labored throughout His life in the harvest field of man.

“Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,…” Christ was given a crown of thorns. The very sentence of the man for his disobedience became the crown of the Lord who sentenced him.

“And you shall eat the herb of the field…” The instructions for the Passover say this – “Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Jesus not only participated in the Passover each year, He prefigured it, leading a life in bitterness to redeem fallen man.

“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat – as it were – great drops of blood falling to the ground thus earning His bread, that being the Bread of Affliction in order to redeem fallen man.

“Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken;…” The mortal part of the Lord Jesus died on Calvary’s cross and was interred for the sins committed by His own creation. Death came in as a result of sin and sin was dealt with by His obedient death.

The very sentence of man for his rebellion was carried out in the Person of Jesus Christ. The Lord God didn’t cause the man to receive anything that He Himself wasn’t willing to endure. Thus He is both Just and the Justifier of everyone who calls on Him.

There is one exception in the curse between Adam and Jesus “For dust you are,And to dust you shall return.” Jesus, because He prevailed over the devil was resurrected by the power of God. The curse has been removed and now anyone who calls on Him will likewise be freed from the finality of death.

²⁰ And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

The name translated Eve in English is immensely unfortunate and removes all relevance to what is being relayed. Her name Khavah means “life.” First we see in this verse that Adam named her.

This confirms what God told her in her sentencing “…he shall rule over you.” Because Adam named her, he has dominion and authority over her, just as when Adam named the animals.

By choosing the name Khavah, or life, he is demonstrating faith in God’s promise to provide a Redeemer. He knew this Redeemer would restore them to spiritual life and fellowship with God. But he had no idea that it would be 4000 years before this Redeemer would come.

All he knew at that moment was that there would be One who would restore their dead condition. It can even be inferred that he expected the first person born from them to be that One because of his naming her Khavah.

Even though they had come to the end of the Garden of God, they had hope of a better day ahead and they exhibited faith that what the Lord promised would come about.

III. Covered in Something Sweet

Donuts aren’t just delicious bread products. They’re often filled with good stuff and even more common and delightful is what they’re covered in. There are all kinds of sweetness and delights which cover a donut. Here are a couple things to think about.

**Donuts don’t make themselves and they don’t get themselves out of the hot oil.
**Donuts don’t cover themselves in delightfully delicious goodness. Instead, someone else does.
**And donuts have to meet the end of their donut-ness if they are to be enjoyed.

Charlie, what are you talking about?

²¹ Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

Only after naming his wife Khavah, does God clothe them. The symbolism in this verse follows through the whole Bible, even to the last book. What would be the reason for waiting to do this until after Adam named His wife? Well, let’s look at the significance of the verse and then why it happened afterwards.

There are three things involved in the clothing of Adam and Eve and they all point to the work of the coming Redeemer –

First, God initiated the action. If you remember, Adam and the woman made fig leaves to cover themselves, but God rejected this. They chose the material, the fashion, and everything else involved in it. Despite this, they were still ashamed and hid when the Lord came looking for them.

The covering couldn’t conceal their deeds. In the same way, all false religions choose the mode of salvation and they initiate the actions which are expected to please God and bring about restoration. They are man-centered, working back to God. But this has been, is, and always will be rejected by God.

Instead, God alone chooses the course of action and He initiates it. He decides the covering and everything else associated with it.

Secondly, something had to die, an innocent animal – probably a lamb or a ram. God didn’t kill Adam or the woman, but rather chose an innocent animal in their place. In essence, He transferred their guilt to the animal and the animal suffered for their misdeeds.

This symbolizes God’s choice of the only sacrifice which is truly acceptable to Him, the death of Jesus Christ – the Lamb of God. Later in the Bible we see in the book of Hebrews that an animal cannot take away sins, but only temporarily cover them until the final Sacrifice – the Lord Jesus, who died in place of fallen man.

And the third thing about this verse – God completed the action. He personally clothed them. It was His gift and it was unmerited. His animal died, His hands prepared the covering, and His hands clothed them. In the book of Revelation, we read this –

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. Revelation 3:4, 5

Later we see that the white garments stand for the righteousness of the saints. It is an imputed righteousness, meaning that it was undeserved, but is given to them based on the work of Christ.

The entire mode of restoration to God for fallen man is summed up then in this one verse – “Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.”

And this is the same pattern used time and again by God throughout the Bible. When the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt, He didn’t tell them to get out of the mess themselves. Instead, He led them out, He guided them in the flight, and when they were facing destruction by the Red Sea, He didn’t tell them to work their way out of it, instead He said, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today.”

And why was it that He clothed them only after Adam named his wife Khavah, or “life.” It’s because this name was a demonstration of faith. They lost access to the Garden when they lacked faith and it was only by faith that they could ever hope to be restored to it.

And so after demonstrating faith, God provided the clothing. In the same way, Jesus gives us His robes of righteousness only after we demonstrate faith in Him.

The Bible – from Genesis to Revelation notes that salvation of the human soul is based on faith and on faith alone. When God speaks, we are expected to take His word at face value, and only after demonstrating faith in His promise are we granted His covering – the righteousness of Christ.

And this righteousness is so very much sweeter than the glazing of a donut. It is perfect and it is whiter and purer than anything we can yet imagine.

IV. Something Better Than Donuts is on the Other Side

The Hebrew word for “donut” is pronounced “soofganiyah” and is a combination of three words, “end,” “garden,” and “God.”  Donuts are literally, “The end of the garden of God.”  Maybe it’s because they’re so tasty and delicious that someone thought, “We lost paradise, but this is the next best thing!”

²² Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.

The man became like the Triune God – he now knows good and evil. Not only is he responsible for his actions, but now he knows the difference between them and he bears the greater responsibility because of the knowledge.

But there could even be a touch of sarcasm in what’s said here. As Adam and Eve stood humiliated in their rough garments, the Creator told us to reflect on what happened. “Look at what their knowledge has got them. Let’s hope that in the future they will make right choices and be obedient to the call of the Master.”

And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³ therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴

God knew that if they were to live forever in the fallen state they were in with clothing that only symbolically covered their shame, they would become infinitely bent on wickedness and evil. And so in a demonstration of both mercy and grace, He took away their access to eternal life.

The Lord drove them out of the Garden “to till the ground from which he was taken.” The purpose of being in the Garden wasn’t to tend and keep it, but to worship and serve the Creator. Now they would have to tend and keep the ground in order to survive. Worshiping and serving the Creator would be a voluntary task based on faith and not by sight.

The life of the faithful since then, even to this day is centered on worshipping and serving the Creator, but our deeds are not done to justify us. They are deeds of faith in an unseen God and they are based on promises which lie ahead of us in a world which mocks and ridicules us for our hope. If you don’t believe that, just ask Tim Tebow.

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Man was driven from the presence of God and the beauty of the Garden. A heavenly guard was placed east of the garden to keep him out so that he couldn’t get to the tree of life. But a guard implies that access is possible. The very fact that this verse is here proves that a return to Eden is not only available, but is expected.

The rest of the Bible, from this point on, details the long adventure of restoring that which was lost. The tabernacle in the wilderness foreshadows access to Eden. The Most Holy Place where God dwelt above the Ark of the Covenant was separated from the outside by a veil on which was sewn cherubim. This veil pointed east, toward the rising sun.

Later, the temple in Jerusalem also faced west with the veil and its cherubim facing east. On a spring morning in the year AD32 a Man died on a cross within sight of that temple. Unlike Adam, who died in his own sin, this man had never sinned. Being sinless, He was destined to live forever, but He voluntarily gave up His precious life to replace what Adam had lost.

The moment He died, the veil to the temple, which was a handbreadth thick, was rent in two from top to bottom by the Creator. His wrath at the sins of Adam and Adam’s seed was satisfied by the death of His own Son, thus fulfilling every type and picture prefigured in the holy and sacred writings.

Access past the cherubim was restored and the Tree of Life was again made available to all those who, by faith and by faith alone, are willing to receive the work of God in Jesus Christ and to bow in submission to Him, calling on Him as Lord.

Donuts may be the end of the garden of God, but they require work and they go bad if they’re not eaten quickly. Oh but God saw our attempt at a sweet and tasty existence and said, “I can do even better. You’ve come to the end of the Garden of God, but I myself will bring you back into it. Listen to the words of Isaiah –

I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations. Isaiah 61:10, 11

Fill me with You Lord, I can fill myself with donuts… c.g.

The End of the Garden of God

Your sentence is pronounced
In pain you shall give birth
Your husband will rule over you
And he shall till the unforgiving earth

Your pains in childbirth will be increased
Indeed your labor will be most severe
But when from your womb the child is released
Again the joy in your heart will appear

And Adam, because you listened to your wife
And from the forbidden fruit you did eat
I shall give you a burdensome life
I’ve cursed the ground beneath your feet

For your crops you will till and the soil will resist
From it thorns and thistles will readily grow
But the things on which you need to subsist
Will take careful work with a plow and hoe

Someday you’ll return to that ground
As a seed planted in the soil
And if by faith you live your life
There shall be a reward for your time of toil

Now I will clothe you with garments of skin
And send you out of this garden of delight
Cherubs will faithfully guard the way back in
Until My Son makes all things right

And when He does you can come back in
Not because of anything you have done
But His blood alone will cover your sin
Such is the wondrous work of my Son.

Hallelujah and Amen!

Genesis 3:14, 15
The Promised One

When we look around at the state of the world, the state of our lives, and the troubles which hem us in, it’s often hard to imagine that God has got everything figured out. Imagine what Habakkuk thought when he saw the armies of Babylon coming against his people –

² O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, Violence!” And You will not save. ³ Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. ⁴ Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds. Habakkuk 1:2-4

The horrifying things which have happened in history can really cause us to question God’s goodness and His ability to keep things under control, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

Why should God interfere in our free will when He isn’t wanted around most of the time? As humans, we normally only seek Him when things are going poorly, but when all is ok, we figure we can do whatever we want.

I email and post on line a Bible devotional every morning. I started with Romans 1:1 and am now up to Revelation chapter 4… one verse a day with analysis and a prayer. This has taken many years and I’ve noticed a trend…

When I post a verse that is happy and uplifting, people sign on for the devotional, but as soon as I post one that mentions God’s judgment in it, numbers drop and people accuse me of not being like Jesus,,,, when Jesus is the One who wrote the book.

The same thing has happened in my Bible classes and sermons. If I speak on judgment, people get offended and leave. But this is a problem with misunderstanding the nature of evil and the consequences of sin – be it individual, within a church, or on a national level.

If judgment bothers you, take it up with God. He will tell you that it will all work out in the end. First though, the devil needs to be dealt with and sin needs to be dealt with. Judgment begins at the house of God and with God’s people. If you struggle with this, you have to spend more time in your Bible.

Introduction:
The two verses we’re going to look at today begin the long process of dealing with the devil and conquering sin. The first verse details the curse of Satan and the restrictions placed on him and the second details in veiled terms his final defeat.

Genesis 3:15 is known at the Protoevangelium or the “first gospel” because it is the first explicit reference in the Bible to the coming Christ. All things will be made right when the devil is destroyed by the Promised One – who we know to be our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

Text Verse: Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. Zechariah 3:1

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Defining the Curse

¹⁴ So the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.

With this pronouncement and the verse which will follow, defeat of the devil is assured. The LORD God didn’t even bother to interrogate the serpent like He did with Adam and the woman. He knew what He heard was true and simply pronounced judgment.

And the judgment gets progressively worse as the LORD speaks. As He does, there is both a physical and a spiritual element to what He says. The pronouncement is upon the serpent as the physical vehicle which was used by the devil, but it is also a spiritual pronouncement upon the devil himself.

The physical pronouncement of the serpent starts with “You are cursed more than all the cattle.” In other words, “even dumb oxen will be ahead of you. They are unreasoning animals and brute beasts, but you are less than they are.”

The ox is are so stupid that they have to be prodded along with poking rods to wherever they are going, but a serpent can’t even reason that far.

The most they can do is be charmed out of a basket just as the devil charmed the man out of the Garden. And just as the charmer is able to put the serpent back into his basket, the Lord is able to again put the man in the Garden. Baskets are for the wicked, paradise is for the righteous.

In Zechariah 5:6-8 we read this nifty parallel – “So I asked, “What is it?” And he said, “It is a basket that is going forth.” He also said, “This is their resemblance throughout the earth: Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket”; then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth.”

Just as wickedness was shut up in the ephah basket, so will Satan be shut up eternally in the Lake of Fire which was prepared especially for him and the fallen angels.

Next in our verse, the LORD says the serpent is cursed “more than every beast of the field.” This doesn’t mean that the other animals are cursed, but that the curse on the serpent would make them lower than the other animals.

“Not only are you lower than the cattle, every animal is above you. You are the lowest of the low and the vilest of the vile. You are exceeded by platypuses, wombats, badgers, and squirrels. Everything will be ahead of you. Even swine which eat the refuse of the world, my fat little walking garbage cans, will be ahead of you.”

The curse continues with “On your belly you shall go.” This particular phrase really has to be taken literally, or we will rob the very meaning of the Bible. In other words, the serpent was physically altered from what it originally looked like to what it looks like now. And now he is a slithering slimy slippery serpent.

“Just as you slithered into the lives of my humans and brought them to the state where they will return to dust, so you will live your existence in the very dust that you have condemned them to.”

“From the dust they came and to the dust they shall return, but you will be united with the dust from beginning to end. You have your kingdom and you have rule and authority, but it is from the lowest position. Other rulers sit above their dominion, but you reign from below it as you lay on your belly.”

Let’s continue on with the LORD’s curse of this vile serpent – “And you shall eat dust all the days of your life.” The defeat is decided. “Just as the slain warrior’s future is in to lay the dust he walked on, so you, serpent, will be like him. You will eat the dust and it will sustain you.”

In this case, it’s possible that the earthworm is included in the overall picture.

The earthworm really does eat the earth and everything that returns to it. As man dissolves back into the earth, so the earthworm finds its food. The serpent destroyed the man in the garden and he would continue to destroy fallen man outside the garden.

But what may appear as a victory for him in this sense is really a condemnation of the devil’s deeds. The only food he would have is that of the death and corruption of his fallen creatures, not of the wellspring of life.

This curse is by far worse than the death mandated for the other animals because it’s of an eternal nature as we’ll see when we get to the book of Revelation many long years from now…

The theme of the Bible’s curse on the serpent carries through every dispensation as well. In the millennial reign of Christ after the tribulation period and when the devil is bound in chains, Isaiah makes this prophesy –

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the ox,
And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,”
Says the LORD. 65:25

When the creation is restored to idyllic conditions for the other animals, the serpent will still be licking the dust.

As I said earlier though, there is a spiritual pronouncement as well. This curse is laid on the devil or Satan who filled the serpent. Satan was an angelic being and even in the book of Job it relates that he could freely enter the Lord’s presence, but in Luke 17 we read this account –

And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but ratherrejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

The curse upon the devil then means that he would never again enjoy the riches of heaven or his angelic position. The food of angel’s is replaced with the souls of fallen men and the degradation of them through impurity and wickedness.

Instead of a marvelous witness to God’s majesty in creation, he would be reduced to being “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”

Elsewhere in the Bible, unreasoning animals that injure or kill man are put to death for their actions. But unlike them, what the serpent and devil did was of a moral, not a physical nature and so instead of extermination, a curse is the result.

This pattern isn’t unique to the devil either. When we get to Chapter 9 of Genesis, we’ll come across the morally offensive sin of Ham, the son of Noah. There, the result is also a curse –

So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. ²⁵ Then he said:
“Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants
He shall be to his brethren.” Vss. 9:24-25

A moral transgression requires a substantial moral curse. This is a lesson we all need to pay heed to.

On your belly you shall go you slithering snake
Your rule will be from the dust of the earth
From corruption and death souls you will take
And to the sons of hell you shall give birth

The world of wickedness is your domain
And every vile thing you shall rule
Your army will be the sons of Cain
The disobedient, the vile, and yes also the fool

But you and your kingdom will have its end
And all the evil that you brought into my creation
To the Lake of Fire all of it I shall send
And there you will receive eternal destruction

Now that we’ve looked at this verse and it’s repercussions for both the serpent and the devil, let’s see how they actually become a veiled picture of the atonement provided by the coming Christ.

Satan went from being the beautiful angel of God’s creation to a serpent – the cunning and loathsome reptile. On the other hand there is an interesting use of the serpent in the book of Numbers –

And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” ⁶ So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
⁷ Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
⁸ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. 21:5-9

In John Chapter 3, we read what this bronze serpent symbolized. Jesus Himself explains it to us –

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 14, 15

One other time this particular bronze serpent is mentioned is in the books of 2 Kings. There we see how it degraded into an idol and also what its name was.

He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.2 Kings 18:4

One important lesson here is that even God’s mode of saving can become an idol. When we look to the cross, we need to remember that it is only a symbol of the greater Person and work of Jesus and not a talisman that replaces Him. We need to be on guard even in the things we think on and boast about most. As Paul said in Galatians 6:14

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Yes we boast in the cross, but only because of what it signifies which is the great deliverance of humanity from sin at the expense of the life of the Lord Jesus. We need to be careful not to make the error that we use the cross as a good luck charm.

This bronze snake we’re talking about was called Nehustan in Hebrew. This word sounds like three different words – “snake,” “bronze,” and “unclean thing.” All of which point to the work of Christ.

The snake – Just as the snake was lifted up in the wilderness, so was Christ lifted up on the cross.

The word bronze – Bronze speaks of judgment. The altar of sacrifice was made of bronze and it was the spot in the temple where sin received its judgment. This like Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as our final judgment on sin. And one more aspect of bronze comes from the book of Revelation where Jesus is said to have feet resembling burnished bronze indicating His authority to judge.

And as an unclean thing – 2 Corinthians 5:21 says this, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus Christ became our unclean thing that we could be cleansed and purified in the presence of an infinitely holy Creator. He was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem just as the unclean bodies of the sacrificial animals were burned outside the camp.

As you can see, everything eventually points to Jesus Christ and what He did for us, even an obscure passage about a bronze snake from the Old Testament and even the curse upon the serpent.

II. Enmity with the Woman

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,

This first half of verse 15 is directed solely to the relationship between the devil and the woman. The question is, “Who is the woman?” Is it speaking of Eve only, or of all women who come after Eve, or is it speaking of a spiritual woman? I would prefer the third option here.

Throughout the Bible there is a distinction made between the sons of men and the sons of God. The sons of God are the chosen line which leads from Adam, through his son Seth, down to Noah, then Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. This line continues to the coming Christ, who is Jesus, and encompasses the nation of Israel.

On the other hand, there is the line of Cain and all of those outside of the Messianic line who are the seed of the devil. This pattern is unmistakable and carries all the way through the Bible.

In 1 John 3, we read a about those who belong to the devil – “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, ¹² not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

In the same book 2 chapters later, John tells us that the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one. Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15 when he makes the contrast between those in Adam and those in Christ. If you are in Adam, you are under the devil’s control and headship.

Therefore, the woman is the godly line whom the devil is at enmity with. And this is fully confirmed in the awesome apocalyptic words recorded in the book of Revelation –

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. ² Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. ³ And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. ⁴ His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. ⁵ She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. ⁶ Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. … Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. ¹⁴ But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. ¹⁵ So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. ¹⁶ But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. ¹⁷ And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:12-6 & 13-17

The woman depicted in these astonishing verses is specifically the nation of Israel “who gave birth to the male Child.” And her offspring, as it clearly states, are those “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

If you’re a Christian and you wonder why life can get so hard, the answer is right here. The devil is out to destroy you and to rob you of your joy.

The devil doesn’t need to spend his time attacking the rest of the world – he already owns them! And so he can spend his time directing his demons to tear at you, fight against you, and make your life miserable. The rest of the world makes their own life miserable because they belong to the author of misery.

Do you wonder why I so constantly nag people to read their Bibles? It’s because this is the only way to know God’s will, to stay in fellowship with Him, and to prevail over the devil’s attacks. Without knowing your Bible, you’re totally exposed to the enmity which came about in Genesis 3:15.

Paul asks you to do the same thing in Ephesians chapter 6… to prepare yourself for the battle which is going on all around us –

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

After saying this, he spends 7 more verses explaining how to win in this battle. Please read your Bible and learn what the devil doesn’t want you to know!

III. The Protoevangelium

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Like I said at the start of our talk today, Protoevangelium means the “First Gospel.”

This particular verse is translated differently in different Bibles. The Latin Vulgate and Douay Rheims Bibles, both of which are Roman Catholic say “she” shall crush your head. The King James Version says “it” shall bruise your head. And others say, “He” shall bruise, or crush your head. The neutral nature of the personal pronoun in Hebrew could render all these possibilities correct.

A. Minto says this, “The second sentence begins with a personal pronoun. The word may refer either to the “woman”, or may refer to the offspring or seed of the woman. Thus the beginning of the second part of Genesis 3:15 is translated primarily in two ways. … In view of the epicene personal pronoun (one form to indicate both male and female sex) as described above, both are correct!

If it is the woman, then it is Eve and her line which leads to the Messiah, and if it is the Seed, then it is specifically referring to the Messiah.

In arguing for “she,” we can note that in Genesis 3:20, Adam calls her “woman” but eventually names her Eve or Khavah which means the “mother of all the living.”

No matter what, the Protoevangelium is prophetic in nature because there is a promise in the future of redemption and that someone will crush the head of the serpent. This judgment on the serpent contains a promise of ultimate victory through the woman by her Offspring, Jesus and so either “He” or “she” is acceptable.

I would still argue for “He” because, the general rule of language is that personal pronouns normally refer to the nearest antecedent, in this case, the nearest antecedent is the word “Seed.” And secondly, the rest of the Bible bears out that it is Christ Jesus who accomplished the work for us.

Paul confirms this in Galatians 3:16 –

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.

Because the Bible allows both possibilities and because both are confirmed elsewhere in Scripture, both must be considered acceptable translations – He or she. However, only one can be used in a translation and so the preferable one is “He.” Although the Seed, Jesus came through the woman, it was He who did the work on our behalf at the cross. “He,” therefore, is by far the better choice.

This verse then not only points to Jesus as the One who would defeat the devil, but it also is the first hint of His incarnation. Throughout the Bible, it is always the man who is highlighted and the promises are made to men and to their seed. With a few exceptions where women are introduced into biblical narratives, the focus is almost entirely on men and their seed such as in Genesis 22:17, 18 –

…blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. ¹⁸ In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

This one verse, however, never speaks of the seed of man. The most wonderful event to occur in human history, the Christmas Story, is given right here, 4000 years before the coming of Christ.

In Isaiah 7:14, we read this parallel thought –

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.

The Seed of the woman is defined and refined here. A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. This Child has no earthly father, but His Father will be God Himself. Thus His name will be Immanuel – “God with us.” Matthew uses this same verse in His gospel and assures us that Jesus is the One who fulfilled the prophecy.

Elsewhere in Jeremiah we read this most difficult of verses –

How long will you gad about,
O you backsliding daughter?
For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth—
A woman shall encompass a man.”31:22

This verse has been used for the concept of the virgin birth while other scholars deny that. If we’re to take it plainly and in its literal sense, no other explanation seems plausible. Israel was lost in waywardness, not following the Lord or His commandments, but Jeremiah said the LORD would create a new thing. The term for “create” is bara and is used specifically for the creative effort in Genesis 1.

He would again do a miraculous work by bringing about the life of a man without using a man. The Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary. The Child who would come from her would be the Son of God. This coming One then would be the Seed of the woman.

When we arrive at the gospel accounts, the writers like Matthew as we already noted, state this is Jesus. But Jesus Himself uses terminology which certainly supports that He is the Seed of the woman prophesied so long ago.

Before performing His first miracle and while hanging on the cross, we have two separate statements of Jesus that reveal His fulfillment of God’s promise –

1. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. ³ And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” John 2:1-4

2. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” ²⁷ Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. John 19:26, 27

In both cases, Jesus refers to Mary as “woman” even though this wasn’t the normal Semitic way of addressing His mother. Because of this, it is certainly His way of identifying Himself as the promised Seed of the woman.

How wonderful to read these verses as spoken from the Lord’s own mouth and to know with all certainty that He is the One to bring us out of the devil’s grasp and to restore us to our Creator, His Almighty Father.

On the cross, the serpent surely “bruised His heel” when the nails were driven into them. The lowly serpent attacked at the heel of the Man, but the Man was like none other. After a short sleep like death, He rose victorious from the grave and crushed the serpent’s head, meaning his authority.

Jesus Christ regained what had been lost many thousands of years earlier and today we can too stand victorious over the work of the devil if we will only, by faith, put our hope and our trust in His glorious work.

Albert Barnes relates his thoughts to us on the matter – “It is singular to find that this simple phrase, coming in naturally and incidentally in a sentence uttered four thousand years, and penned at least fifteen hundred years, before the Christian era, describes exactly and literally Him who was made of woman without the intervention of man, that He might destroy the works of the devil. This clause in the sentence of the tempter is the first dawn of hope for the human family after the fall. We cannot tell whether to admire more the simplicity of its terms, the breadth and comprehensiveness of its meaning, or the minuteness of its application to the far-distant event which it mainly contemplates.”

The most astonishing concept ever penned is that which tells of the work of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in the pages of the Holy Bible – God’s love letter of restoration, grace, and mercy.

From these earliest verses of Genesis, all the way through the book of Revelation, we see the wondrous works of an infinitely wise God telling us about the plan of the ages. In John Chapter 19, we see the highest point of that plan when Jesus died on the cross –

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” ²⁹ Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. ³⁰ So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. John 19:28-30

“It is finished” – Paid in full. The victory promised in the Protoevangelium was consummated in the death of a Man in a backwater part of the Roman Empire on a Friday afternoon in the year AD32. The glories which came then and are yet to come will reach into eternity and forever we will sing the song of the Lamb.

The Promised One

In the garden the serpent received his curse
On your belly you shall go, licking up the dust
The words were direct and they were terse
But the sentence was completely fair and just

Cursed are you more than the cattle
And more than every beast of the field
Your existence will be as the heat of battle
But in the end it is you who will yield

Of the dust you shall eat
For all the days of your life
Never shall you taste the sweet
But only the fruits of death and strife

I shall put enmity between you and the woman
An on-going battle through lengths of ages
You seed, the unregenerate human
Who against me reviles and rages

But there shall come One, a Promised Seed
Who will crush your head for what you have done
Your days are numbered so take you heed
In my mind the battle is already won

Jesus is coming to make all things new
This word is faithful and it is true

In the cross, a victory you will assume
A victory – yes – but not for you
After His cross and after His tomb
He will arise and make all things new

Man’s redemption will have been wrought
By the Seed of the woman, my own Son
With His blood He will have bought
The right to man’s soul, the victory won.

For eternity my Son’s redeemed will sing
They will walk in the glorious light of life
From the cross of Jesus He will bring
Out of the sea of troubles a radiant wife

All hail the splendid name of Jesus!
Our King sits at the right hand of God on high
Great and wondrous things He has done for us
And we will exalt Him as eternal years pass by

Hallelujah and amen!

 

Salvation call…

 

Next week we will be talking about Genesis 3:16-24. I hope you’ll take time to read those verses, think on them, and get ready for a delightfully delicious sermon entitled “Introducing Donuts – The End of the Garden of God.”

 

 

Genesis 3:7-13
Naked and Exposed

Introduction: Our last sermon closed with this verse – “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Before we go forward, let’s go back…back to chapter 2 –

“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

A question needs to be addressed and answered before we can move on. This is an issue that comes up many times in the remaining 1187 chapters of the Bible and needs to be remembered by everyone willing to accept the Bible’s overall premise.

The question is, “If God said that Adam would die on the day he ate of the fruit, then how could we be doing more sermons on the life of Adam, starting with today? Did God lie?”

The answer is, “No, God didn’t lie.” Well, if God didn’t lie and Adam didn’t die physically, then something else must have happened. From today’s passage on, even until this first day of 2012, man has been dead… spiritually dead. We are born dead and remain that way if and until Christ works in our lives.

Adam and the woman died spiritually the moment they ate of the fruit and all people are born into Adam, spiritually dead. This is the premise of the Bible – that all are born into sin and are thus separated from God at conception. The only thing that can correct this is a new birth – to be “born again” as Jesus declared.

Paul, in the book of Romans, explains this. Although he is writing about the Law of Moses, the same premise applies to the disobedience of Adam and the woman.

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. ⁹ I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. ¹⁰ And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. ¹¹ Romans 7:7-11

Paul says, “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.”

Death resulted from the law, even though the law coming from God was good. Our last sermon resolved this when we looked at how two things, both created in a “good” state, can produce evil. The law, in this case staying away from the tree of knowledge, acted on the deficient will of Adam and the woman.

This is what brought about death and death continues in man until this day. Apart from a rebirth, we will remain spiritually dead and separated from God for eternity.

Text Verse: Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:3-6

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Covering Up

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

Adam and the woman (I’m calling her the woman because she hasn’t yet been named – not as an offense to her. Eventually she will be called his wife, and then later, “Eve.”) Anyway,,, they had their eyes opened. They saw the effects of evil because they had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they suddenly realized their naked state.

They knew what it was to feel shame and they tried to hide the shame they felt. They did this by sewing fig leaves together. There are several things we can get from this one verse and deeds are the focus of the three aspects –

The first aspect is that they realized their sin because of their deeds. They had been given a law and they disobeyed it. Paul, speaking of the Law of Moses, said the following. I’m using his logic in a way comparable to what Adam did –

… as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;) Romans 2:12, 13

Adam and the woman failed in the law they had been given. Their deeds testified against them.

In Galatians 3:11, he compliments this same logic –

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”

I hope you are beginning to understand or are more fully able to comprehend what I explained in the sermon on Free Will from Genesis 2:16, 17. No one is justified by the law. Adam and the woman needed faith, but their deeds, which weren’t based on faith, are what brought about their pitiful situation.

The second aspect in sewing fig leaves is that they knew their helpless state. They relied on their deeds to make them to “be like God.” But even though this did occur – that they became like God, to know good and evil – it also made them less like God in another way. Their spiritual death at that moment and their works testified against them. This is amazingly similar to the dead church of Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3 –

Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

Adam and the woman thought that they would gain everything and have need of nothing, but instead, like the church in Laodicea, they became wretched – creatures that would live a toilsome existence from the soil that would stubbornly provide for them.

They became miserable – creatures that would long for a return to the garden they had lost and who were destined instead to have trials, troubles, pains, and sorrows.

They became poor – creatures who no longer had the riches of heaven, but the thorns of the earth. They would no longer have the waters of life. Instead, their waters came from wells dug into the land and which needed to be drawn up by the strength of their arm.

They became blind – creatures without spiritual life or eyes to discern spiritual things. Instead, they would grope through a world of darkness and evil.

And they became naked – creatures that were exposed both physically and spiritually. Their nakedness testified against them then and it continues to testify against us even to this day.

Do you think it’s any coincidence that Jesus brings up these points to the church of Laodicea? No. God was speaking to them and is speaking to us that all the deeds in the world will do nothing for us unless they are done by faith.

The third aspect of their attempt to cover themselves is that they tried to make things right on their own initiative. In other words, here they have disobeyed, they’ve sinned, and they’ve seen their nakedness, and they tried to cover it with fig leaves. Fig leaves are unsuitable to cover a person. Here’s a few reasons why –

They aren’t strong enough for the task – a leaf can’t withstand the stress that’s applied to them. They aren’t durable enough for the task – they wear out as they dry and will fall to pieces quickly. They aren’t protective enough for safety as the material isn’t user friendly for the hardships we face.

Each of these points parallels our deeds in trying to obtain God’s favor. They aren’t strong enough to cover our sin. Our deeds cannot hold up to the stress of sin’s consequences. They aren’t durable enough for the task; temporary deeds can’t satisfy an infinite penalty.

And they aren’t protective enough for the safety of the person. The fiery darts of the devil, the internal struggles of sin, and the weakness of our souls cannot be overcome by deeds. Instead, they leave us in the same sad shape, or even worse, than we were in.

This pattern has been repeated countless times since sin first entered the world. We do wrong and we try to hide our wrong.

When Bill Clinton was discovered to have had an extra-marital affair, he lied about it and did what he could with his presidential powers to cover it up. He even went as far as publically mulling over what the definition of “is” is. He shamefully sewed fig leaves together in an attempt to hide his guilt.

In the same way, Jim Bakker, the disgraced TV evangelist was accused of offering a $265,000 bribe to a secretary in the ministry to cover up their adultery. He was also tried and convicted on charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering stemming from his involvement in several illegal financial transactions during the construction of Heritage USA.

Even the first King of Israel, Saul, attempted to cover up his wrongdoing. When he found that his sin was exposed before God, he had the nerve to say to Samuel “I have sinned; yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, …”

In contrast to these people, Job held onto his righteousness as a badge of honor and even compared his acts against the unrighteousness of Adam.

But whether it’s a politician, a minister, a king, or Job, whether we have done something amiss or not, we stand naked and exposed before the God who searches the hearts and minds of His creatures.

II. A Moment in Time

⁸ And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

It’s surprising how many theologians deny the literal reading of this verse. The LORD God, Jehovah Elohim – the God of Power and Perfection walked in the garden in the cool of the day – in Hebrew, the “wind of the day.” Adam Clarke gives us his comments on this passage –

“The voice is properly used here, for as God is an infinite Spirit, and cannot be confined to any form, so he can have no personal appearance.” In other words, He doesn’t believe God walked in the garden.

The main premise for people who follow the literal method of Bible interpretation is that we should be satisfied with the literal interpretation of a text unless very substantial reasons can be given for advancing beyond the literal meaning.

In the case of this account, the LORD GOD walking in the garden, there is no good reason to deny it being taken literally and there is the authority of God’s word that it should be. In other words, Jehovah Elohim really walked in the Garden of Eden just as He did when He met Abraham in Genesis 18; just as He did when He wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 32; just as He appeared to Joshua before the battle of Jericho; and just as He did on many other occasions in the Old Testament.

This same Lord God walked among His people after the Incarnation, when the Holy Spirit united with human flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the master of time and space and He walked in the Garden and elsewhere, appearing in His own history.

People speculate on how long it was before Adam and the woman actually ate of the fruit in disobedience. In one of my Bible classes I was asked this and my answer was, “Probably not very long.”

One Jewish commentary, which includes a timeline of all of history, says this, “On the very day he was created, man committed the first sin of history, transgressing the divine commandment not to eat from the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.’ Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, and mankind became subject to death, labor, and moral confusion.”

This seems to be validated by the term “the cool of the day.” It was the end of the day, the evening, that Jehovah Elohim walked in the Garden… plenty enough time had gone by for his innocent and precious creatures to have their eyes opened.

If this is so – if they really sinned on the first day they were created – it brings about an immensely profound theological concept and so I would caution you to take my personal thoughts here with a complete grain of salt and yet ponder them as if they were the choicest of fruits.

In Genesis 1, it said at the end of the sixth day of creation, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

If Adam fell before the end of the sixth day, and everything was very good on the sixth day, then God’s plan included His creatures to be complete and not lacking knowledge by the end of the sixth day. Is an innocent creature – one that doesn’t know good from evil – complete or not?

If the man was placed in the garden to worship and serve His Creator, could he do it without this knowledge? Personally, I would say not. And therefore the book of Revelation where we see the restoration of the Garden to creatures who have the knowledge of good and evil is even more significant than we might imagine!

Out of 7000 years of human existence which is 2,520,000 days, only 1 day was as it should have been and Oh! how we wait for the restoration of that perfect day.

I think this is supportable by God’s rest on Day 7. God rested from His labors on that day and the purpose of man was to enter God’s rest. Because this is so, then it makes complete sense that He was expelled from the Garden before the 7^th day.

Only when the fullness of time had come when Jesus was crucified and resurrected was man allowed to actually enter God’s rest. As it says in Hebrews 4:3, “For we who have believed do enter that rest…”

That Adam and the woman fell on the sixth day of creation is also supportable by the comment in Revelation 13:8 – “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was “slain from the foundation of the world.” Sin is what necessitated the death of the Lord and therefore sin occurred at the foundation of the world – known to us as the six days of creation.

We look around us and see death, troubles, misery, and pain, but God sees a plan that will bring many sons to glory and one which is worth the cost to have creatures that can appreciate the greatness of His marvelous plan. Never underestimate the immense glory of what God has done and is doing in this on-going bubble of time and space!

III. Hiding Away

⁹ Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”

Man o man… nothing has changed in the last 6000 years. The Lord called to Him. “Adam… hellooooo Adam.” Where are you? Of course He knew where Adam was, but He was drawing him out in a tender manner, just as a parent would to their wayward child. Jeremiah asks this rhetorical question from the Lord –

Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?” says the LORD;
“Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD. 23:24

The great King of Israel, David, tried to hide his own sin from the Lord after having slept with Bathsheba and then having her husband Uriah killed. Let’s take a few moments and read the account –

And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” ⁶ Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷ When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war prospered. ⁸ And David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah departed from the king’s house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. ¹⁰ So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” ¹¹ And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”  ¹² Then David said to Uriah, “Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³ Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. ¹⁴ In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵ And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” ¹⁶ So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. ¹⁷ Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also. …(And going down a few verses) When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. ²⁷ And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. 2 Samuel 11:5-17 & 26, 27

David tried to cover up his sins with fig leaves but the LORD knew what had happened. Instead of working wickedness and trying to hide our shame behind foliage, Paul gives us a much better way of handling things in the book of Romans –

Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. ¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Romans 13:13, 14

Because what David did is so intricately tied to Adam’s account, let’s go back there and see the continued comparison – “Then the LORD sent Nathan to David.”

Nathan is the king’s prophet. Right here, can’t you hear the LORD calling Adam… “Aaaadam, Oh Aaadam.” But instead of Adam, the LORD is calling out to His beloved King – “David… Oh Daaavid.”

And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. ² The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. ³ But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. ⁴ And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

David listened intently to the account, this parable about his own sin being given to him by his prophet Nathan. He was the king and the one to judge legal cases. As he sat and listened, he wasn’t clueing in to what his own prophet, his mouthpiece of the LORD, was trying to tell him.

Who else would he be talking about? But just like Adam, he was secretly hiding in his own little garden. He was naked and covered in fig leaves, just like his first father.

And just like the Garden, the woman he had conspired with was securely hidden with him, behind the walls of his palace. “Oh, Zion is nice and comfortable and the LORD doesn’t see a thing.” But the LORD found Adam who was hiding in Eden and the LORD found David hiding in Zion.

The Garden of Eden means a “Garden of Delight” and Zion means a “Parched Place.” From one extreme to another, “the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

IV. Passing the Buck

¹² Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

I get to do this a lot. Whenever I’m found out for some misdeed, I simply pass the buck to my Beauty. “It was all Hideko’s fault, can’t you see this. She made me do it, the little devil.”

Well, maybe not all the time…

But this is our natural proclivity. We blame our co-workers when things don’t go right at work. We blame our brother or sister when mom and dad find out the thing we did. We blame McDonald’s for making the coffee too hot when we stupidly drop it and burn ourselves. We blame the rich for our financial woes. We blame God for every bad thing that we can’t control. We love to point the finger and pass the buck to someone else.

Adam passed the buck and it landed at right Eve’s feet. But what is also included here is a bit more… “The woman whom You gave to be with me…” ha-issha asher nathata imadi

“The woman made me do it, but really, it’s Your fault. You put her in my lap. Things sure would have been better without her.” And this is the pattern of the unrighteous of human beings down through the ages. Not only do we pass the buck, but we somehow find a way of blaming God in the process.

This really is the mark of the unrighteous soul. This is what King Saul did when he disobeyed God’s order to destroy everything belonging to the Amalekites when he fought against them –

Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the LORD.” But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.”

Saul passed the buck on to God, “I did it because it’s what God would have wanted.” But this unrepentant attitude after being found out… the attitude which was so similar to Adam, wasn’t at all like David. How could the LORD call David “a man after my own heart” even after he committed adultery and murder? Let’s continue with David’s trial before the LORD –

So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.’”

V. Kicking the Can

Most of you have probably heard the term “kicking the can down the road.” We use this to say that someone who’s getting blamed for something turns around and blames someone else. In the world’s first cast of “kicking the can down the road,” the woman taught us how to do it.

Women have given us other firsts as well. After tedious research on the internet and elsewhere, I found 7 women who accomplished wonderful firsts – 1) Bette Nesmith Graham invented liquid paper; 2) Sixteenth century noblewoman Lady Mary Wortley Montagu discovered the smallpox vaccination; 3) Helen Greiner invented the first bomb diffusing robot; 4) Sarah Blakely, comedian turned entrepreneur, invented SpanX – in her case, I’m not sure if she ever left the field of comedy; 5) Margaret Knight invented paper bags… she didn’t invent paper or bags, but she did invent paper bags; 6) Marion Donovan invented disposable diapers; and 7) Hideko Garrett invented a workable method of turning a completely helpless soul into an effective dish washer and husband. All notable firsts…

Women accomplished all of these notable tasks, but our first mother, Eve, gets sole rights to “kicking the can down the road.”

¹³ And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam was very careful to assign blame directly to Eve and indirectly to the LORD, but Eve – without missing a beat, turned around and blamed the serpent. Paul made sure to note in the New Testament though that kicking the can only goes so far –

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. ¹⁴ And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

I appreciate Paul reminding of this. By the time we get to 1 Timothy, which is 55 books into the Bible, it can be tough to keep all these things in order.

In all seriousness though, this pattern has remained pretty much uninterrupted since it first occurred. It’s so easy to pass the buck and kick the can and it’s rare when someone will own up to their own failings.

In the case of King David, what did he do after he was confronted with his transgressions? He stood fast and took the heat –

¹³ So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴ However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.” ¹⁵ Then Nathan departed to his house.

Yes, sin has consequences and David paid for them in his family and in the many trials he faced, but because of his repentant heart and the depth of his emotions when confronted with his own sin, God favored him.

The 51^st Psalm is David’s heartfelt acknowledgment of his misdeeds and it has filled the souls of people for over 2700 years with a deeper understanding of the type of person God rejoices over in His dealings with the sons of men. When we sin, let’s be strong enough to admit it and to not attempt to cover ourselves with fig leaves and then assign blame when we’re found out. Rather, let’s openly acknowledge our sins and move on.

I’ll leave you with this final verse to remember tonight –

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:13

Tragedy in the Garden

The woman was enticed and she ate of the fruit
She passed it on to Adam and he ate as well
He became the second willing recruit
And together they left a sad story to tell

Their eyes were opened to their exposed state
They realized that life in sin just ain’t so great

They sewed together figs to hide their shame
And made coverings that just wouldn’t suffice
The Lord questioned them about their hiding game
And they realized that sin just ain’t so nice.

“Where are you?” called the LORD. (Though he already knew)
“I was hiding because I realized something wasn’t right
I was afraid to answer, I’m naked … yes it’s true
And so I hid myself, like a shadow in the night.”

“Who told you that you were naked? What is this you did do?
Have you taken of the fruit which I told you not to eat?”
“It was the women who did it… the one made by You
She told me of it’s yumminess,,, and how it was so sweet.”

I thought it would be so good, but I guess I paid the price
I’m beginning to see that sin really ain’t so nice

“Woman, what is this thing that you have done?
Traded life under the heaven’s for life under the sun.”
Oh my LORD it was the serpent. He deceived me and I ate
And now I’m seeing that sin just ain’t so great.”

Oh God that we could take it back and undo what we have done
Life was wonderful under the heavens
But it’s terrible under the sun.

What can we do make things right?
Where can we turn to be healed?
How long will we be cast from Your sight?
How long until the grave is unsealed?

I have a plan children, but you’ll have to wait
Many years under the sun toiling in the heat
But I will someday open wide heaven’s gate
When my own Son, the devil will defeat.

I will send my own Son, the devil to defeat.