Introductory Considerations
1. We are related by God. As we saw last week God established a relationship with Adam and with mankind including you and me.
2. The relationship was one in which He gave us life and in which He calls us to trust in Him and obey Him. To obey Him meant mainly thing - to not rely on ourselves but to rely on Him. It meant to eat from the tree of life which He provides rather than from relying on our own wisdom and strength. To humbly admit we need God and His grace.
3. Things have not changed - we still need to do that today to experience His blessings. To do so means life while to reject His terms and rely on self means death
4. It seemed like a fair deal. But Adam and Eve blew it. Instead of simply trusting and obeying, they listened to the lies of the serpent.
Teaching
1.Satan, as we have seen in Job in our evening worship, hates God. He rebelled against God because he wanted to be raised above God. Because of pride, he thought he did not need God and wanted to rule in God’s place. Satan failed and as a result he and a third of the angels, those who followed him, were expelled from heaven.
2. But Satan did not give up. He was determined to undermine the work of God. He did not want God to be worshiped. He wanted to destroy the relationship that God had established with mankind.
3. And so he told Eve that if they disobeyed God they would be like God - knowing good and evil. In other words they would not need God any more - they could rely upon themselves. Sounds like the same message he is telling people today.
4. And so, because of their pride, Eve and then Adam broke the bond of trust and obedience God had established with them.
5. And because of that things would never be the same again. Never again would the innocence of a sinless world exist on this earth.
6. While we can blame them for this, we also basically do the same thing. We fail to trust and obey God - without Holy Spirit we do not do this as all and even as Christians we fail to fully trust and obey.
7. Last week I said the two trees stand before us and we need to choose from which one we will eat. Do we choose life or death? - because of sin we also have chosen death.
8. If God chose to do so, he could have ended His relationship with us then and there. He could have said "That’s it, maybe I’ll create another world elsewhere.
9. But God had made us, He loved us and still wanted us to experience His blessings.
a. If He changed the terms of the covenant that He already had established, He would not have been true to His word.
b. So God came after Adam and Eve and confronts them and confronts the evil one who led them to rebel. And as He does He shows us that He does give us a second chance. That He will not just let us go our own way to follow our own devices.
c. This would be repeated over and over again in His dealings with His people in the Bible and with His dealings with us.
d. Friends, we as Adam and Eve have broken our relationship with God, but, in His grace, He comes after us and lets us know that He wants the relationship to continue.
e. As the father of the prodigal son He is waiting for us to come back to Him to enjoy the blessings of the home He first established for Him.
10. Today He sets the groundwork for the way in which we can again renew our relationship to be a relationship of life rather than of death. As we look at this covenant we again see how elements of life and death are in it and how they apply to us today.
11. The covenant or the way that God will relate to us is found in verse 14-19
12. God first talks to the serpent.
a. Some would say that verse 14-15 is a way of explaining why snakes crawl and nothing more, but in passing judgement on the snake God is really passing judgement on the one who is acting through Him - Satan himself.
b. Satan is to be cursed above all - His curse will result in Him being thrown into the Lake of Fire when he will be judged.
c. Rather than Satan having won the victory or rather than God destroying Satan right then and there, God says that He will put enmity between his seed and the woman’s seed.
d. The word enmity means hostility or struggle. In other words there will be a struggle going on between Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed or offspring.
e. That seems strange - for both Satan and Eve have rebelled against God - but Satan has not won Eve over. Why does God chose the woman rather than the man? She was the first one to be seduced and perhaps Adam would, in pride, blame her for it all and the ultimate deliver would be born of a woman.
f. But who are the descendants or seed of Satan? We know that angels (Satan is one) do not give birth though they may be included here. The Bible tells us that Cain was of the evil one. Jesus says that his opponents were of "their father, the devil". Offspring of Satan are those, even though born of a woman, who follow Satan .
13. There will throughout history be a struggle between those who stand against God and those He has called to be His people. There will be those who will suffer the death of those who rebel and disobey but there will be life for those who follow God.
a. This struggle will culminate in one person in particular. The word for offspring is plural an yet we are told that "he" will crush the serpents head.
b. Who is this individual? Non other than Christ alone. Although Satan will strike His heel and seen to have victory on the cross we know that Christ rose. Satan on the other hand will be dealt a fatal blow - his head will be crushed.
14. What does this have to do with our relationship with God? It means that although we chose to disobey God, He will chose from amongst humanity those who will continue to obey Him and fight His cause. He will not let Satan get the victory.
a. Athough we will face consequences and although death has entered into the world, God will still bring life. In His grace, He will even work through those who have disobeyed Him. Even though we sin and walk away from God at times, He still uses us for His purpose.
b. Seen in common grace - why those who are against God can be used by Him to bring life. Seen in specific grace as God uses sinners as us to proclaim His word, the word of life.
15. God says that our relationship will continue. There are those and will be those who completely disobey God and reject Him, but there are those and will be those who rebel but are drawn back to Him by acknowledging that they were wrong in and who humble themselves before Him.
16. There will be a struggle with Satan on a spiritual realm and here on earth, but God will ultimately send His Son, as a descendant of Adam and Eve to win the victory for us.
17. Although the previous covenant of trust and obedience has been broken by us, God continues to call us to trust in Him and fight the evil in us and around us. He does not leave that struggle up to us alone but He involves Himself in that struggle
18. And so we have both life and death in our relationship. In His words to Eve and Adam He shows elements of both.
19. Elements of death - pain and hardship will be part of Eve’s and women’s lives. Yet there is life - child birth will continue but it will be with great pain.
a. Even in the gift of life that God gives He reminds us of sin. Perhaps some of you have felt like cursing Eve when you have gone through the pains of giving birth.
b. Also her relationship with her husband will change. Before she was a helper and he was a benevolent head but now her desire will be for her husband.
c. Some say that this might mean sexual desire or a deeper need for love which can never be filled. That might be so but the context suggests something else.
d. Her desire will be to possess him, to control him, to dominate him. In reaction, he will rule over her and by dominating excessively.
e. Just think, all the marriage problems are part of the curse God put on us as a result of Eve’s disobedience.
20. Then God turns to Adam. Because of sin the ground is cursed. The food that came forth so plentifully and easily will now require excessive work. Wweeds now appear and thorns and thistles. But despite that we again see God’s grace at work, for God, as said, could have stopped the ground from yielding any food at all. But it still bore food so that man would still be able to live in order that God could still gather a people to Him who would be faithful.
a. I do not think that work is a curse but the excessive amount of effort to yield food is the curse. Work and rest was part of God’s plan before the fall.
b. Of course the largest curse is that God fulfills His terms that man would die because of his disobedience. (Gen 3:19)
c. Yet even though mankind dies God in His grace will provide an opportunity to live, as we will see as the covenant develops.
21. A couple of points are worth looking at.
22. Because of sin there are consequences - to all of mankind and even to those who are the offspring of the woman -the chosen of God. The struggles and consequences that Adam and Eve faced still affect us today.
a. They remind us what happens when we rely on self in pride.
b. They also remind us that we need God because of the suffering we face. They bring us to Him humbling seeking Him. Yet it is He who sets the terms. He who chooses us - He comes after us. But we need to respond.
23. The other consideration for us is that we God still provides for us. He continues to show His grace even in the hardships and consequences of sin. H e commits Himself to each of us.
a. We have a responsibility for sin and deserve the penalty of death. Thanks be to the offspring of the woman and to His heavenly Father, we have the offer of life.
24. We are still related to God. But are we among the saved or the lost? Whose seed are you? That is between you and God.
25. One large indication is in whom you trust. In how great your pride is? In whether you believe you really need God and His Son who died for you.
26. What do you believe?
