Let's start now in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, that's on page 8 in your few Bibles. And we'll read together verses 14 through 19. Verses 14 through 19. Together. 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. 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. 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. Then 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. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 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. The word of the Lord, and may it strengthen our hearts to grow in grace. God's curses on His creation. Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, instead of being close to God and living for the glory of God, man chose to live apart from God and for the glory of himself. And there were consequences. And today you will hear about those consequences of living that way. Our headings are God Cursed the Snake, God Cursed the Woman, God Cursed the Man. And our goals are that you will develop a deep understanding of the cosmic consequence of sin and appreciate more the work of Jesus Christ who came to redeem you from those consequences. First, God cursed the snake. God cursed the snake. Now, because of the sneaky snake sin, snakes, one of which was used by the sneaky snake to deceive Eve and bring curses upon man, snakes were cursed instead of eating fruits. They were cursed with eating dust. But why this specific curse? Remember, the serpent caused man to eat what he should not have eaten. So God, in a picture of irony, says, you, snake, will eat what you should not have eaten. I will make you eat dust. instead of fruits. Now snakes do eat fruits, especially sweet fruits. They are known for doing that. But they also are cursed with eating dust. So the crafty one was cursed by God. But God didn't only curse the snake. God also cursed the one who used the snake, the big sneaky snake himself, Satan. And he was cursed with ultimate destruction. He was already cast out of heaven with a third of the angels who became wicked and we start to call them evil spirits or demons. His ultimate destruction would be that his head would be crushed. This is a figurative expression, meaning he would be destroyed. Someone whose head is crushed doesn't live anymore. And the serpent would crush the heel of the woman's seed, that is Jesus Christ, but the woman's seed would be the means by which Satan's head would be crushed. In other words, he would have complete defeat, sentenced to hell for eternity. Now, you notice, if you have your Bibles, you would see it says bruised but crushed is a better translation because it fits in with what we find in the rest of the scripture describing what would happen to the evil one for he is described as being crushed, even by God's people. There's something that's important to note here that's easy to pass over. When the serpent's seed and himself, when you see this in this text, the serpent's seed and himself are treated as one. They all would be defeated. When Jesus defeated Satan, it meant every single demon was defeated. But when we talk about the seed of the woman, there's a difference between that one special seed and the rest of the seed. We're not the same. In fact, The other children of the woman would join with the demons for a while, will submit themselves and follow the devil. And this one seed of the woman would stand up against wickedness and he would ultimately destroy the devil. Now this, of course, rejects Mormonism, which speaks of men as being like semi-gods. Well, that's not true at all. In fact, all of the woman's other seed, all of its children, or children, became wicked. This is also very much against Roman Catholicism, which says that it wasn't the son that would crush the head of the serpent. It's the mother. And that's where you have this term called Mariolatry, or the worship of Mary. That she's the means by which, ultimately, the serpent's head was crushed. That's perverted. That's a robbing of God of the glory that belongs to Him. Look at Galatians in your notes, Galatians chapter 4, verse 4 and 5 together. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. He was born of the woman, and he would be the means of redemption. That's why Mary in the Magnificat and Luke says, I rejoice in God, my Savior. Because she needed to be saved. She could save no one. Now, when did this crushing of the serpent's head take place? When did the seed of the woman, all by himself because his children or his brothers and sisters had joined with the other side, when did this happen? Well, this crushing of Satan's head took place at the cross. Jesus' heel was crushed because he only died for a time, but rose again triumphantly. His injury was temporary. But Christ's resurrection meant the devil's work was defeated and he had no more control over Christ's church. Many of them were set free from their enslavement to the devil and he could never possess them again. Listen to how one scholar described this and I thought include this quote because it's so beautiful. He said, Christ overthrew Satan's kingdom, baffled Satan's temptations, rescued souls out of his hands, cast him out of the bodies of people, dispossessed armed strong man, and divided his spoil by his death, gave him a fatal, incurable blow to the devil's kingdom. A wound to the head of the beast can never be healed. Then Satan falls and is bound. That's the work of Jesus on the cross. Look at Colossians. The Apostle Paul described it this way, verse 15, chapter 2. Together, having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. That's why the resurrection was so important, wasn't it? When Jesus rose from the dead, he said the consequences of the devil controlling these other children of the woman The hold he had was broken. Death no longer had victory. They no longer had control of the people of God. Isn't that a wonderful picture? You were tied and bound, but here the ones who were holding them prisoner were disarmed. And not only that, it wasn't just an escape. There's triumph. There's joy. That's what we're doing here. This is a mocking of Satan who had us imprisoned and now we're liberated. So what can we learn here? Six lessons. First of all, God cursed the snake and changed its anatomy to show He was God. And there was none like He is in all the earth. God had all power to do His will. So God wasn't teaching the snake a lesson. They're not moral creatures. God had nothing against snakes personally. By the way, you can eat whatever you want without feeling bad because animals don't have souls. If you enjoy it and it's safe for you, go full force, enjoy it. So it wasn't a personal thing. The snake wasn't a moral creature. You don't have to hate snakes in a particular way. They were just used. Second, ever since that time of the cursing of the snake, cursing of the snake to eat dust, eating dust has become a symbol of total defeat. You hear that expression when somebody says, eat my dust? The idea is that you are reduced to nothing. I'm destroying you. Micah chapter 7, verse 16 and 17, together, The nation shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall put their hand over their mouth. Their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent. They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth. They shall be afraid of the Lord our God and shall fear because of you. There it is, they're afraid because of who God is, and it's a picture of defeat, eating dust like snakes. Third, Christ's work at the cross is a strong declaration of His judgment, not just on Satan and demons, but also on all wicked men. They are all sent to hell for rejecting the cross. And they're condemned by the cross because here's a sacrifice for sins and they reject it. Four, the son of the woman would have many children. That's you. You are sons of God. And you will continue the work of crushing the body of Satan, that sneaky snake. How? With the preaching of the gospel and establishing dominion for Christ. You will win over his body. The ones who are following the devil will abandon him because you will continue that work of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what we sing about. Christ shall have dominion. That's what Solomon talked about in Psalm 72. When Messiah comes, you'll have dominion over land and sea. Look at Romans 16, verse 20, together. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. You see the language of creation? You see why bruise is not the best word there, but crushing? Because that's the work that Christ will accomplish and you as His children will continue to do. Number five, so fight the devil with the assurance of victory. Isn't that the best kind? You're fighting and you know you're going to win. You don't have to panic. Remember, God spoke all of these things for man and for his descendants so man can have hope. hearing of that coming victory. Remember, 1 John 3, 13, though, keep this in mind. Together, do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. The Lord says, prepare for that. But look, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Have that confidence. One more lesson. Something that is missing here. There's no discussion here about Satan's sin. We will come to the woman sin and then the man sin. Why nothing about Satan's sin? Because he has no hope. No hope of forgiveness, no hope of salvation. I say that not just the state of fact, but to show how precious you are. God had no reason to do so. And yet he provided salvation for you. He didn't for Satan. Be thankful and serve him. Let's come to our second point. So God curses snake. The physical snake and then the big sneaky snake. But then God also cursed the woman. God cursed the woman with pain in intimacy and pregnancy and with increasing frequency of conception. Every woman who has had children understands this pain, or just as you, just this past week. And the woman who has children very close together understands the struggle even more. And if you look at the text, you will see that word, I'll greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. What do you see there? Greatly multiply modifies your sorrow, so I'll greatly multiply your sorrow, and I will greatly multiply your conception. What does it mean to multiply your conception? Well, first of all, you have to remember that intimacy was not intended solely for having children, like Roman Catholics teach. But now the joys of intimacy will become limited because of greatly multiplying conception, meaning frequent pregnancies that are close together. And this woman would also have miscarriages and stillbirths. Because of what happened here, marriage was hurt by sin. And marriages would never be the same again until the Lord Jesus would save and bless. And you get to see why you should marry believers. Second, God cursed the woman with trying to rule her husband. This is where it gets kind of interesting in our text. The phrase, your desire shall be for your husband, is not the best translation in our text. In fact, I'm not a fan of the ESV Bible, but here it gives a better interpretation. It doesn't translate, it interprets it where it says, that you will have, you will want to be contrary to your husband. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband. It wasn't the desire here to be next to your husband and be all cozy and warm and huggy. This is a desire to rule your husband. Remember, this was part of the curse upon the woman. This would be all the bad things she would do. The curse was not mixed up with blessing. How do we know that that's how we should translate this? Because both translations are possible, you have to get the right one. Well, look at Genesis chapter 4 verse 7 to see what this means. This is with Cain when God was rebuking Cain. He said to him, verse 7, together, If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at your door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. This is not desire, sin's desire to be warm and comforted and huggy with you. This is sin's desire to control you. So your desire for your husband is not to be next to him, it's for your husband's authority. It's to rule and control your husband. So as part of the curse, Eve would desire not to be by her husband's side in loving relationship, but to rule over him. And then the curse continues. God cursed the woman with a domineering husband. Adam's rule was not the work of a loving headship, but it signified a tyrannical reign over his wife. Eve would try to rule Adam, and he would respond by being a tyrant. Remember, Eve manipulated her husband into eating the forbidden fruit. But now he would rule over her with a heavy hand. The consequence of sin against God. And this is so strongly stated that the Apostle Paul explained that this deceiving of the woman by the servant so easily was a reason she was not allowed to teach or to have authority over a man. He knew what Genesis said, and he responded. Genesis was saying, your desire is to rule or to have authority over your husband, and the Apostle Paul says, No, you're not to have authority over your husband. 1 Timothy chapter 2, 12 through 14, together, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Why would they say so if this were not the case, if women weren't trying to rule? Some people would say, well, that was in that culture. They were just, because the women were uneducated, therefore they were not allowed to rule or to be leaders. But you notice what the Apostle Paul went back to, Genesis, the very beginning. when Eve was the smartest a woman ever was. And he said, no. Women are not allowed to be leaders in the church or in the home. What can we learn here? First of all, the life of a woman has always been hard because of this curse. But God is restoring creation. And it is our duty to work to alleve the consequences of the curse. Look how Christians have promoted universities to increase learning. Most modern universities were founded by Christian people to advance science, real science. Think of how our sister was blessed with being able to have a C-section this past week. Prior to that, often a mother or a baby would die, or sometimes both. Think of it when you have those headaches and we're coming into our lovely allergy season. You didn't have some of that medicine, that reactant or whatever you need to give you some relief. Should you say, I'm not gonna take any medicines, God says I must suffer and therefore I will bear? No, we work to remove that every woman who's had an epidural appreciates the joy that comes when that medicine kicks in. Well, that's what God intended, right? But life is hard, we must acknowledge that. Yet God is restoring. Second, as a woman, don't abuse or manipulate your husband. He is a saved son of God. He might not be smart, but know who his father is. If you abuse your husband, you will injure the kingdom work. The two of you have to work together for the glory of God. That's your primary purpose. Don't abuse him. Third, don't be a tyrant over your wife. She's a saved daughter of God. Remember who her father is. You know, in the old days, they would say, you better know who her father is. He might be the judge in the town or might be a policeman. Don't mess with the man's daughter. Don't mess with his daughter because he's the God of the universe. And he watches what you do to his daughter if you are a tyrant over her or you're one who loves her to death. Remember, she is special to him. Working with your wife will build the kingdom in a more glorious way and faster and therefore more glory will go up to God. You notice I didn't say, you better be really good to your wife because she is absolutely perfect. No, I said her father is perfect and the father loves her. Keep that in mind. Let's come to a third point. God cursed the snake, the one crawling on the ground, and the big one from hell. God then cursed the woman, multiplying her conception, cursing her with clamoring for her husband's authority, even with a tyrant of a husband. But then God also cursed the man. God cursed the ground Adam would work for following the bad advice of his wife and ignoring God's command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, what would happen? Adam's toils would be long and hard to provide food. The earth would produce less foods and poorer quality foods and the deliciousness of the foods. You think foods are good now? You think those tropical fruits are good? They're nothing compared to what they were back then. They were lost in Eden and instead useless and harmless Harmful plants would grow. There'd be more weed than wheat and more thorns than tomatoes. That's how the curse affected man. And instead of man eating the food of his labors, wild animals and aphids, and they're coming soon, would destroy them. And by the way, the word for toil is the same word for the woman in her labor pains. Man is getting it too. because of his sin and his complacency. More, God cursed Adam with hard work. Not only would the ground refuse to produce, but he would work with sweat and tears until his body returned to the dust. So every time a man worked hard, his back ached, or a thorn sticks his finger, or bugs eat his vegetables, or when he has a headache, he would know it was because of the fall of mankind. Every time you go to a funeral, it's a reminder that after all the hard work you do, that's what's coming. That's the curse. That's the curse that came upon every man because our federal head, our covenant keeper messed up really badly. Job chapter 1 verse 21, which is really, let's read together. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. After all the hard work, death comes into focus. Now, number three really should go with the lesson, so we'll start there in terms of application. When you read of all these terrible things, the pains a woman will go through, the difficulty of a man's life, You don't have to blindly accept the consequences of the curse if you can avoid it. It is good, by God's grace, to seek to remove the effects of the curse. If you work well and the nation is blessed, good for you. You won't have to do that back-breaking work. Just like a woman might take paid medicines for delivery of her babies, so you should be willing to take that. Let me deal with an issue since this is one that will often come up. There are some people who believe that A woman should never use birth control. What a foolish thing to say. You know why? Because we're removing the effects. If you understand it, God is saying, I will multiply your conception so you will get pregnant as quickly as possible. And what's the worst nightmare for a mother is having three under three. If you've had that, you know how difficult that is. The most difficult time in a woman's life. Now it's not saying you shouldn't have children, you should. And it's selfishness that would make people say, I refuse under any circumstance to have children because they might take away my freedom or they might damage my body. But if you were able to remove the effects of the curse, for example, spacing out your children, that's just like you would take pain medicine to remove the effects of pain. That's just like a man might learn to work harder and use machinery because, you know, I've seen farmers and these guys are in air conditioned and they're sowing seeds by machines. And they're very comfortable in the way they're doing it. We don't say, since God has cursed us with hard work, we must do the same thing over and over again. We must use a hoe. No, you've got a machine, use it. That's a blessing of God. As God blesses us, we receive his blessing. Second, work. A man who doesn't work when he's able is showing a wretched rejection of God, and he should starve. A man who doesn't work when he's able to is in wretched rejection of God, and you should watch him starve and not help him, at least to feed him. You help him by telling him he should work, and helping him to work, and maybe pointing him where he can find work. But work is essential. That's a command from God. But also know, third, work is usually hard. You have to wake up early and face the cold or face the traffic or face unfriendly coworkers or face an unfair boss or face a government that wants more and more of your taxes and wait till you get your property tax bill in Scarborough. Then you'll understand this even more. You'll say the hardships of life. This is normal, this is par for the course, they would say. but be thankful that you're able to work. You could be sawing trees with a handsaw in minus 20 degree weather. None of you here is doing that, and thank God for that, but work is hard. Don't complain. If you can remove it, you do, the hardness of the work, but don't complain if you have to work hard. Four, after all the hard work, you will die. You will die because of Adam's sin. And every funeral reminds you of this. And then five, the thorns Adam would endure is a picture of the work of Christ for you. We heard that last week when he took that crown of thorns and they rammed it onto his head. He was carrying at the front of his thought the removal of the curse that came upon you. And that's how this all gets fixed, doesn't it? The first Adam, what a colossal failure. But the second Adam, what a wonderful savior. He obeyed perfectly throughout his life, resisted all the temptations, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. And then he took the full punishment for your sins. Let's conclude. What horrible curses were put on the woman. Pain in childbirth and multiplicity of her conception. What pain and troubles were announced on men. Brutal, hard work. And then death. And then consider the eternal consequences on both. Eternal death and hell. Yet in all of this, in all of this hopeless picture of the curses and then eternal death coming, is this beautiful picture. You hear the voice of hope. Jesus was coming. The garden is coming again. The restoration of all things is in Jesus Christ. the second Adam. So, brothers and sisters in Jesus, one, God's promise to the woman did come true. The curse is removed. Jesus came to save. This is the grace of heaven about which you must keep talking. The convicted wretched sinner is restored as a child of God with all the rights and privileges of true children. Be thankful. Eventually, heaven is coming. Second, God's physical blessings will come again to the land when men start to live for Him. You know, God courses the very land itself. But as men return to God, there's nothing stopping God from blessing us, except when He looks and sees the way we live. If we turn back to God, so many of the consequences can be reversed. I was listening to something recently in Brazil where they said over almost 600 rivers and creeks have dried up completely. Drought striking the land. The difficulties that are there. Can God remove that? Of course. God sends rain wherever. He told Amos, I will send rain on one city and not on the next city. God can do that. Physical blessings will come too. But we must turn to God, not invest money like these shysters on television says, you send us 20 bucks and God will make it into 200. No, godliness is what will bring prosperity to the land. Third, work for God's grace to spread through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus. Pray for those who preach it. Preach it yourself. And finally, if you live for you, You will feel God's curse in this life, and then you will experience it in fullness in hell. But if you want to live for God, ask God to remove the curse that were put upon you from Adam and Eve when they sinned, and to put those curses on Jesus. You know, if you pray that prayer, he will clear your record and adopt you as his child. The curse of Adam will be gone. Let us pray. Thank you, Heavenly Father, that you have given us your words to hear again proclaimed. And what a somber reminder of what we truly deserve, not only in this life, but for eternity in hell because of the sin of our parents. Oh, what wonderful hope we have in the second Adam. Ah, he died so his church could be purified and grow and thrive. And one day that true marriage supper of the Lamb will take place. His bride will be joined with him for eternity. Thank you, Lord, for that. And help us to work towards that hope by inviting more to come into the kingdom and rejoice with them together knowing that our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.