The High Cost Of Sin Series

“To the woman [God] said,

‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,

but he shall rule over you.’

“And to Adam he said,

‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you,

“You shall not eat of it,”

cursed is the ground because of you;

in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.’” [1]

What a dark account of the sin that plunged the race into ruin is given in the text chosen for this Advent message! Even to refer to this dark evil as the text for an Advent sermon seems strange at best, and positively outlandish otherwise. Shouldn’t the message for this Advent service be marked by gaiety? Shouldn’t those who share our services during this season be encouraged by the message to think pleasant thoughts? Perhaps the preacher should be speaking of the excitement and the anticipation of the season? Why should those attending the services of the congregation ever be compelled to listen to a message that speaks of our sin and of the consequences of our sin, especially during the Advent Season?

Tragically, contemporary church goers appear to have forgotten the reason Christ was born. We have lived in such a way that we neither wish to reflect on how our world arrived at this present situation, or how we ourselves may have contributed to the condition that now prevails. Neither have we remembered the grace of God revealed in sending His Son to present His life as a sacrifice for our broken condition. Christmas has become an excuse to focus on fulfilling our own desires rather than serving as a joyous remembrance of the love of God demonstrated through giving His own Son for us.

It will benefit each of us to recall why the Lord was compelled to intervene in human history. I suggest that we need to pause so we can recall the neglected truth that history is a continuum from the Creation until now. And what lies ahead in the history of mankind is determined by what has preceded. In other words, the history of mankind is one long, dark story interrupted by the Living God to reveal His love and His grace; and that interruption was so that the Son of God might be presented as the perfect sacrifice to restore our broken fellowship with the Living God. The story of man began in fellowship with the Creator before moving into darkness that grows ever darker until hope is born and light begins to shine as a Child is born, and we move toward full light again.

HOW WE ARRIVED AT OUR PRESENT SITUATION — Let’s go back in our minds to a time when the world was new, when our first parents had just entered into life before their Creator. Let’s allow our minds to transport us once again to a time that seems to exist as a mere memory of and yearning for a halcyon time when the world was fresh and there was no death, no pain, no sorrow, no sin. Let’s think once again of what it must have been when all the world was a paradise. Though I recognise that the passage is extended, it will be to our benefit to refresh our memory of the divine account of the creation of our first parents.

In GENESIS 2:5-25, we read, “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

“A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.