MEASURE UPON MEASURE – SORROW – THE RESTORATION OF GOD - Part 7
CHAPTER 4 - THE FOURTH CONSEQUENCE
Are we not continually bombarded through television and magazines with a variety of advertisements showing groups of people smiling and laughing, seemingly with the world at their feet? What the advertisers are trying to convey is the desire in the viewers “to be like them.” Just too much of this is merely stage managed, for in actual fact, deep down, so many of these people are basically unhappy. In this regard the viewers are more like the actors than they realise. Movie stars, whom many fans idolise, are among the saddest of all and live a life of prescribed drugs and “recreational drugs” and alcohol just to keep going, but for their image they continue to present that effervescent face to the world. But all is a pretence.
Politicians love to be all-engaging when the cameras are on them but many of them in their private lives go home to face their own demons, to use a world expression. You have heard the expression, “Drown your sorrows in drink,” or something similar. Everyone in this world faces sadness and sorrow, but there is a vastly different understanding of that for the Christian and the non-Christian, that we shall discuss later.
Among the revealing insights from a few of the world’s great men come these: The poet Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure but afterwards admitted, “The worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone.” Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed his share of position and fame. He wrote, “ Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.” These two men reflect something of the sadness and futility clothing the human race. Sorrow and lack of purpose are universal.
SERENITY RUINED
In the Edenic tranquility, how much sadness and regret was there; how many spilt tears; how many moods of sorrowful depression; how much pretence? Well, there was none. Husband and wife lived without any pain of suffering. There was none in their relationship, none in their bodies, for nothing hurtful was present.
How dramatically all this was reversed because of the sinful act of disobedience. We are now to look at THE FOURTH CONSEQUENCE OF MAN’S FALL, part of Serenity Ruined, and we find it in {{Genesis 3:16. To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply YOUR PAIN IN CHILDBIRTH. In pain you shall bring forth children; yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”}}
That was an interesting comment to Eve about multiplying her pain in childbirth because she had not given birth to start with and so had no idea of pain in that regard. In fact there had not been any conception otherwise her first child would have been conceived and born without sin and that was not the case. As I understand that verse, there would have been some pain in childbirth if sin had not entered, for it says, “I will greatly MULTIPLY your pain.”
This verse specifically addresses the woman, and in essence, all women. There is promised to them sorrow or pain in childbirth and to that fact all mothers can testify to a greater or lesser extent. God is tagging a reminder in all births, of the fact of sin and the consequence of it. Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28) and it would be logically supposed that childbirth would have had little pain but for the deceitful entry of sin into God’s paradise.
SIN’S RESULTS
Sorrow though has no limited confinement merely to childbirth. It rapidly spread throughout all locations of mankind and through all avenues of life. Hurt, pain, grief and sorrow are all aspects in full operation and display in every part of human endeavour and daily living. Sorrow has matured beyond the immediate introduction of the pain concept in childbirth. It is part of the curse. This world is teeming with sorrowful people but you can’t pick that by looking at them.
How sorrow has afflicted every life, and the fingers of pain and grief have touched countless numbers of human beings time and time again. So ingrained is sorrow and pain and grief that they are accepted normally as one of the various human emotions, and we have divorced sorrow in particular from any relationship to the fall, yet we must be reminded of its origin so it can be placed in its proper perspective. Understanding brings awareness and reason and then can progress to solution. Humanists have no solution at all but compound the problem.
(a). Sorrow entered the lives of mankind through Eve and Adam but the nation that bore the direct line to Jesus Christ, has tasted of frequent sorrow more than any other people through history. The developing Jewish nation suffered under an unjust Pharaoh, and amidst the infanticide, the ongoing groaning and sorrow was not unnoticed by God. They suffered at the hands of their enemies frequently, often a chastisement for their sin in departing from the good intention of Jehovah toward them. There was terrible sorrow inflicted by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, with pillage, rape and death, at the fall of Jerusalem. Rebellion after rebellion almost drowned the sorrowful nation under the Romans until in AD 70, the estimate is that over 1 000 000 Jews were executed by the Romans (many of these being crucifixions).
But their sin in rejecting the Messiah while calling for His blood to be upon them and upon their children was not an idle request. Throughout their dispersion and through the Middle Ages there was great persecution originating from Papal sources against the Jews as “Christ killers” and “heretics”. All through Europe, spanning the centuries, the Jew has been persecuted, denied and hunted and killed. Even Martin Luther was outspoken in his opposition and persecution of the Jews. In 1993 the then Pope intimated there will be a change in the Catholic policy towards the Jews because he wanted to infiltrate himself through the Middle East.
In our own decades we know only too well of the Holocaust, the horrific murder of 6 000 000 Jews under Hitler’s hand. Add to that the attitude and actions of the Communists and the nations surrounding Israel. Since Israel became a nation in 1948 it has fought for its survival in wars by Islam against it. Right now the News is filled with Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Authority, Houtis, Iran, and the most treacherous of all, the United Nations. How that nation has known of griefs and sorrows, innumerable through the millennia.
(b). Finding evidence of SORROW in this world is not difficult. It has etched itself on multitudes of human faces which speak of the pain borne by individual after individual. Displayed before the viewing audience every time the television news is put on, sorrow in its multitudinous forms confronts the viewer. For the honest “more decent” person, the world’s sadness is a great burden to bear.
It is not the product of the survival of the fittest as Darwin proclaimed in his satanic evolution. It is the accumulation of man’s unrepentant sin; the weight of sin’s departure from God.
(c). We could spend all day citing examples of sorrow and grief but I am going to list only a few of them. Sickness and suffering are widespread, especially resulting from actions of war or from greed. The whole umbrella of war itself is a cause of disease and sorrow. Those who can remember the indescribable sorrows of the African situations in the 1970’s and 80’s and the 90’s too, initiated by war and compounded by famine, will not readily forget the scenes etched in the memories. Do you recall Biafra? The sorrow in Sudan, Nigeria, Congo and others too because of the evil march of Islam is sickening. Sorrow shows in marital situations where there is unfaithfulness and drunkenness and physical abuse.
(d). Children who have become wayward or pose a concern weigh heavily in parental sorrow. Jacob’s pining and sorrow of heart for his son, Joseph, lasted many years because he presumed Joseph was dead, such was a father’s concern. Rejection and persecution, various injustices including oppression along with the removal of human rights, and slavery, have caused untold sorrow. Often the most abrupt sorrow and the one the world finds hardest to come to grips with, is death, especially that of a spouse or close friend, a child or parent.
(e). Coping with sorrow can create personality complications and sorrow itself can spark various physical and psychological problems resulting in medical disorders. This consequence of sin has stamped itself so firmly on the human race that sorrow and grief have almost become a constant feature of human living, yet we must remember that in the beginning it was not so.
(f). How have humans tried to cope with sorrow? The establishment sees numerous psychologists and grief therapists and counsellors. Books have been written proposing formulae and methods and approaches to positive thinking. Perhaps these may be of some help but they are only band-aid situations unless they lock in on the real source of help which can only come from God. GOD HAS PROVIDED THE SOLUTION AND THAT IS FOUND ONLY IN JESUS CHRIST. Sin brought about this consequence, and sorrow has passed to all men and women. In what way has the Lord identified with us in this problem?
THE SAVIOUR’S ROAD IN SORROW
In mapping the Saviour’s Road, let us begin by considering two key verses in this regard. They are {{Isaiah 53:3-4. “HE WAS DESPISED and forsaken of men, A MAN OF SORROWS AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and OUR SORROWS HE CARRIED; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”}}
These verses are profoundly revealing concerning the character of the Lord and His purpose here on earth. They are from a major prophetic section of the Old Testament, probably the most precise declaration about the substitutionary death of the Lord before the appointed time, and remarkable in that the passage was penned around 700 BC. “A MAN OF SORROWS”. How much have we thought about that expression? Let us take it one step further. In what way was He the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief?
Just a brief examination of His earthly ministry will shed some light on that question. All through His earthly life of 33 years, Jesus encountered both sinners and their sin, not to speak of ongoing opposition from the Pharisees and scribes; in fact the whole religious establishment. His holy soul was constantly assaulted by the ugliness of sin, and by the continual indecencies of human beings to Him and to each other. Sin, in its confrontation and association with Him, was a certain source of sorrow. Everywhere, He saw and heard the results of sin and they were very nasty to His spotless character.
The final result of sin is death, and that aspect was the cause of much grief, for it was not meant to be so when God placed man in Eden. Picture the Lord Jesus at Bethany’s graveyard, weeping sorrowfully because Lazarus had died, not that Lazarus was unsaved, but his death still marked the distress and the sorrow which death causes, and very largely was the reason Jesus had come to earth. Death is the final earthly sorrow because it means permanent earthly separation. In the previous consequence we thought about separation, and here at Bethany, many faced that personal sorrow.
He had come to deal with the problem that resulted in death. His perfect knowledge could trace the development of sin from the fall, for He was present in the garden. Also He knew why He had come and knew perfectly how the events before Him would unfold. He had come to seek and to save those who were lost, and to be lost is to be in sorrow.
His compassion for people superimposed additional sorrow. He felt compassion for all, for they were like sheep without a Shepherd, yet not all were healed or helped. Nevertheless His compassion extended to all, for in bearing the sorrows and griefs of all, He encompassed all people.
While He ministered during those three and one half years, His ministry in one sense could be compared with that of a tender hearted veterinary in some crisis, moving around and casting his eyes upon animals, maimed and burnt by bushfires, passing one, then another, noting the terrible ravages and scars each one carried, and being overcome by sorrow, as the full devastation of the scene became apparent. Thus, in compassion, there was great sorrow. He was the MAN OF SORROWS. The Lord Jesus identified with humankind in their sufferings and the ministry of His compassion was the way He was acquainted with our grief and responded to it.
The beginning and end of the key verse 3 provides another insight into His sorrow. “He was despised.” What a harsh yet astounding thought that conveys. The Maker of all things, the Upholder of the universe, was despised by the ones He had created. Being despised by His own nation was dreadful and Isaiah adds, “and we did not esteem Him.” The Lord was rejected and despised, and in our generation we see that everywhere, and as well, being encountered by Jesus’s followers. In the past two centuries Christians enjoyed a measure of tolerance and acceptance, but as it stands in 2025, Christ's name is hated and despised, as is His believing remnant.
CAUSES OF THE LORD’S SORROW
(a). In a similar vein, another source of sorrow was the rejection He faced in several forms. FIRSTLY, His message was rejected. Some of us are unhappy if our ideas are not readily received, but the people He ministered to, rejected the very words of eternal life. Knowing that their rejection in unbelief would lead to a Godless eternity, was sorrow indeed.
(b). SECONDLY, His loving, personal claims were rejected. Who can fathom the depth of feeling that day, when after He received word that Herod was attempting to kill Him, He summed up His rejection in this fashion: {{Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, AND YOU WOULD NOT HAVE IT!”}} He wept over Jerusalem. How He wanted to gather the people to His Person but they were unwilling. How that must have pierced Him with sorrow.
(c). THIRDLY. I sometimes think Jesus experienced great sorrow with those words, “Away with Him. Away with Him. Crucify Him.” (John 19:15). Only 4 to 5 days earlier the crowds spread branches along the street as Jesus rode on a donkey to the shouts of {{“Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”}} (Matthew 21:9). Some of those that day caught up in the hype, but just 5 days later were shouting for His death. How fickle people are! Do not put your trust in man for man is deceitful. I have found that out personally to my great sorrow, and not only once, but many times.
(d). FOURTHLY, of great sorrow to Him was His own death and the anticipation of it. Matthew 26:37-38 records this on the betrayal night. {{And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “MY SOUL IS DEEPLY GRIEVED, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”}}. The NASB uses “grieved” in the place of the AV’s “sorrowful”. I think there is a good possibility that the anticipation of the cross was a sorrow for Him long before the events of Gethsemane transpired.
(e). FIFTHLY. This would lead us then to perhaps THE GREATEST SORROW OF ALL. That occurred on the cross. Isaiah 53:4 sheds light on this. It clearly states He carried our sorrows and He bore our griefs. And there we have that profound truth of substitution, which was the Saviour’s Road. That became the fullest measure of identification. At Calvary, our sorrows and griefs were laid upon Him and He made them His own, willingly; He the willing sacrifice as the Lamb to the slaughter.
[[This is not a good place to break this 4th Consequence but I have to do it as one message will be too large.]]
