& 3 In the Beginning & Off to a Rough Start

All right, now, I don't have a handout this time, and that's by design. So since you probably don't have what we can do. Do you have your Bible? OK. All right. It would be a Genesis two and three. In just very briefly, to give the proper setting, Genesis 1, of course, is the account of Just a few things to point out.

In Genesis 1.27 it says, God created man in his own image and in the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And then the next verse I'll point out is verse 31. God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. As you look at that, We'll see the reason for including verse 31 there, that previously God said it was good, but when it was all done, this is very good. The end of Chapter 1, however, is a summary because what this doesn't tell you is the detail that's given in Chapter 2. Some people will say, well, it's two creation accounts because they're not understanding it.

In the same way, in our culture, we would have, here's a picture and now here's a telephoto lens. Zoom in on something. And that's what he's doing. Chapter 2 is a telephoto lens of what we saw described as he created male and female. So it's not a second creation account, or they hacked together a couple of accounts. It's a zoom lens view. It's like Google Earth. Yeah, Google Earth is yours and we're going to zoom in. And so chapter 2 is zooming in on what was summarized in just a couple of verses there in chapter 1.

So then he's describing all the details about how he made the man and the woman and giving you the insight from that. Let's in chapter 2 look to verse 15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. So what's there? You've got all the rustic creation, and you've got the garden, and you've got the man. Okay, there's the initial setting.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, from any tree of the garden, you, singular, maybe because nobody else is there, right? freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you, just you, shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Then the Lord God said, It is not good. Now here's the interesting thing.

How did he finish chapter one? Chapter one? Very good. Very good. That was very good. It's very good. Now what do we just see? It is not good. It is not good for the man to be alone. That's so interesting. This is the first time it's a not good. Yeah. But it was actually before the very good. Yeah, interesting. So you take this because it's a zoom lens. This fits into that verses 27 and 28. So it gives you an additional insight here into the Lord's perspective.

What the Lord made was very good, but the Lord was not going to stop with just Adam. There's something else that's a matter here too. We looked at 1 Corinthians 7 and it starts off with what I believe is Paul restating some of the Corinthians questions. They had a question because somebody had apparently begun putting out this idea that it's good for a man not to touch a woman. And what this says, here's God saying it, it's not good that the man be alone. So that's God's own judgment.

I will make him a helper suitable for him. So instantly he made a woman, right? Made her out of the dust of the ground? Nope. Bone of my bones. So then he kind of backtracks out of the ground. The Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. Now, why did the Lord do this? Why didn't he just, okay, this man needs a woman.

I'm going to make a woman. Now we're done. Why did he go through this process? Well, the next verse says, but for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So, was he looking to see if any of the animals would be a suitable helper? Yeah, you look at it, and you think the Lord says, not good that man's alone. He didn't just instantly go out and create a woman, and now we're done. Instead, he goes, okay, here's all the animals, and what are the things that Adam is going to notice about those animals?

Yeah, one is, yeah, you're right. If you look at it, there's nothing quite like me. Right. You know? And none of them can talk like a woman can. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's not so bad. So you look at them, first of all, there was none that was like him. And then for a great number of the creatures, there's also something else. That's definitely, to pick an example, that's definitely a lion, but there's male and female.

Oh, right. So the two things, I mean, he's going to, and so really what did the Lord do? The Lord had already recognized he needs somebody. Right, right. It's not good that he'd be alone. He needs somebody. That's going to be necessary for me to proclaim very good. Right, right. So to recognize, one, that nothing corresponds to me as a human being.

And secondly, a good many of these animals, especially the larger ones, are male and female. They're just meat. How does this work? So was it to have Adam recognize it? Yeah. So that's the thing, is to look at it and to have Adam recognize it. Because otherwise he could have just said, I'm going to make a woman. But that's, if you think about it, a part of the process, even in recognizing the guy saying, you know, I need a partner here. For the guy to recognize that I'm not complete by myself. and to recognize that. And the Lord doesn't do it in this way, but still, that's a process that as guys grow up, there's sort of a, you know, I'm not enough, just by me.

But the Lord did it this way with Adam, where he could bring all the animals and he could see that there's nothing corresponding to me, and there's male and female among a whole bunch of these animals. What have I got? But for Adam, it was not found a helper suitable for him. So here's Adam. Ding! Here is a need that I have, and there is this lack of correspondence. So before the Lord resolved Adam's problem, brought Adam to recognize it. And yeah, he revealed it. And this is what's going to happen in men as well. There is a point of recognition. Here's how the Lord dealt with it in that circumstance.

It just made me think of when my parents met. They actually didn't know each other very long before they got engaged. Just a few weeks I think. But they had been going out a lot and then all of a sudden my dad stopped calling. He just totally stopped calling. My mom was devastated. No warning for this.

And then he called her one night and made a date with her, which is almost like, why would she go out with him? But they went out and he said to her, I've tried and I've tried and I just can't do it. I can't live without you. Will you marry me? That is so cool. That's that point of recognition.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. He must have been quite asleep. And he slept. And then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. Think about this for a minute. Why didn't he just take some more dust? I mean, he could have just said, you know, there's a man. I made him out of the dirt of the ground. I'll just make another woman do.

But instead, you know, he chooses this. And one thing that would be abundantly clear And he would recognize, this is, you know, the animals, there's nothing that corresponds to me. And they're of a whole different creation, you know. That's a really neat giraffe, but it just doesn't get there, you know. And it just doesn't touch me.

Whereas, here is the woman taken from the man. This is very definitely of my kind. There's no question, she's not just something that is approximately of my kind. This is definitely of my kind. And then, beyond that, fashioned the woman into the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. There's a few things to be looked at there. I think one of the things that this illustrates is what was Adam doing while this woman was being made?

It was sleeping that there you know we talked about first Peter 3 7 where it is the duty of the husband to understand the wife But notice that there isn't is as much as he recognizes that this is boner by boner flesh flesh There's also an element of mystery And that that You have a sense of kind of a tension about, on the one hand, the husband is to understand the wife, and on the other hand, this isn't kind of like our friends from time back.

Gee, after you've known this woman for five years, don't you know everything? The reality is that there is an element of mystery. This guy is not a part of the picture of this woman's creation. There is an aspect of her that is going to be mysterious to him and in reality a lifetime could be taken up.

Are you supposed to understand her? Yes. Is there also a continuing mystery to learn about her because that's the way God made her? Of you and yet different. You don't have awareness of all the details of how this came about. Something else that, look how the Lord did it, brought her to the man. That first of all, the man needs to recognize, you know, I need somebody corresponding to me. There's the animals. There's nothing among the animals that corresponds to me. And I see there's a bunch of male and female among them, but I'm just me.

So in two ways, there needs to be a fitting character to this helper that the Lord was to make. But also, ultimately, that the Lord, not only does the man recognize the need for the woman, but the Lord brought her to the man. a recognition here that putting the husband and wife together is not just purely a raw physical thing.

At the core of it, it's spiritual. This is God himself who put the two of them together. I think that's something else. Here's a man. who was given a life, and is this God's gift? Just a recognition, I need someone that corresponds to me, but also a recognition, this is God's gift. God is the one.

And this is a spiritual joining together, not just something raw, physical, or just something that the courthouse takes care of. Fundamentally, whether the government has something in place or not, this is a spiritual thing that the Lord put together. And let's ask something else. We're going to get into it shortly, but how about the fall? Had it taken place?

No. So the Lord put this together before there was even sin in the world. And so marriage is not a part of the curse. Marriage is something that God designed at the outset. And as a matter of fact, it was God's ideal. And this is, we're seeing the details on what he ultimately ended up summarizing.

This is very good. God looks at it and says, yes! Yes! God, yeah, sweet. God looks at this and says, this is great. And brought her to the man. It's God's presentation. So the man said, The little Hebrew word there is zot. The first thing he said when the woman was there in the Hebrew was zot. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

This is definitely corresponding to me and this is definitely fulfilling the male and female that I saw in the animals but it wasn't reality up until this point. And so ultimately, I mean, you tell Adam, ah, yes, you know. He looks at it. This is not just God saying this is very good, but Adam is recognizing this is exactly what I needed. It didn't seem to take him very long. No, it looked like almost instant, you know. Love at first sight. Yeah, love at first sight.

Of course, this is the basis for what the Jews would read this, and this is about marriage. This verse 24 is one that Christ quotes in the Gospels. It's one that Paul quotes at the end of Ephesians 5, and also he quotes about half of it when he writes to the Church of Corinth. And so it's a verse that's repeated again and again. This is a verse that marriage was laid out before fall. Marriage was laid out, and it is not something that depends upon, oh, you're Jewish, or I'm Gentile, or, you know.

This was for all human beings for all of time on this, you know, this planet. And will continue on until this heavens and earth are done. So for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Notice he's establishing the pattern from here on out. Obviously Adam and Eve were created. But he's saying that the pattern here shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

Verse 24, it seems to be rather a commentary on this. It's not in quotes, it doesn't seem to be God speaking, but rather a commentary. Yes, that's a good way to put it. Maybe Moses notes afterwards as to how, here's the account, but here's what this means to us. Maybe even Adam passed that on to his own sons. Maybe. Yeah, we aren't told exactly where it came from, but it appears to be quite ancient.

One of the things that is this reason the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, what God put together there was a couple in which Adam had a headship and a responsibility and yet he recognized this is one of my own kind of flesh. And yet there's also a complementary nature to her.

And so there was an equalness as well as a headship. And in terms of sequence, Paul brings up in the New Testament that the man was created first and then the woman. One of the things that we see those points to is when a couple gets married, They are establishing a new family unit. In that new family unit, the husband has a headship and that family unit needs to be respected as such.

When I walked Becky up the aisle, which took me a long time to get over, I gave her away to Kurt. I'm passing on the headship. This is now yours. It's his responsibility. It's something that, even as her father, that I need to respect. He is now her head. In the same way he's left his household, his dad doesn't call the shots anymore.

It doesn't mean you can't have input and ministry in their lives, but it has to be done within the boundaries really established by the new couple. Yeah, that's right. When Nancy and I go over to one of our adult married kids homes, we have to respect the headship of the husband in each case. We have to respect that each family is a new unit created by God. Just like here God put the marriage together. This is something the Lord put together and I can't touch it. It's not my place to touch it.

When we step into their homes, it's how do they want to do things? And even with their kids, how do they want to do things? That ends up being a real principle thing to keep in place. Different families have different degrees of struggle with how to keep in-laws and sisters and friends and everybody else from invading the space.

Sometimes it's no problem at all, and sometimes it's a real problem, but it's something to be recognized. And it says there, and the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. And one of the things that we see in the next chapter is all of a sudden something gets contaminated with that. There was no sense of You know, I'm naked.

Something else I want to move back to just a little bit in this join to his wife, both the Hebrew and in the Greek New Testament and what Paul quotes in Ephesians 5. that joined is an intensive gluing. So the joining is not just kind of put together to be taken apart like puzzle pieces, but it's looked upon as an intensive gluing where this union of the two is a major change. Okay, now, chapter 3.

The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? Now, first we've got to ask this. Who was told about not eating of the tree?

Adam. Adam was the one. So here's Adam. He was the one. Now the serpents coming in and questioning has got set. It is not only a questioning of God, but it's also a questioning of Adam. It's a question of Adam's place there. But he didn't approach Adam. Yeah, he didn't approach Adam. He comes to Eve. And he doesn't make an outright denial, he simply questions. He places an element of doubt, and of course directly you see it's about what God said, but because we see in the prior chapter it's also questioning Adam.

So here's the serpent is making, introducing the idea that we'll then proceed into the division not only of human beings from God, but also between husband and wife. And the woman said to the serpent, I have no idea whether she should have said anything, but from the fruit of the tree, trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it. And then, something that at least seems to be added, or touch it, or you will die. How do they know what die meant? I don't know. There's a kind of puzzler. I wonder if the animals, could the animals die at that point?

It doesn't seem like it, because it seems like death was introduced with sin. Especially if you go through Romans. With sin is death. And God mentioned it to him back in chapter 2. Paul also writes that the last enemy to be defeated is death. Well, death is an enemy.

So it can't have already been going on. Right. So the serpent said to the woman, you shall... Now first is the question. Now the denial. God's wrong. And your husband's wrong. So there's both a division between the human race and God proposed, and division between the husband and wife. The trust is broken. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, oh, this is not death, this is a blessing. Okay? You shall not die, for God knows in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Okay?

Let's think about this a minute. Was the serpent right? Will you be like God, knowing good and evil? I'm waiting for the answer. Well, God certainly knows the difference between good and evil. And if they will then know evil, then they would be like God in that sense. But that doesn't mean that they are like God. That's right. It's not the whole truth. Yeah. So what has he done? He's introduced a question. Then a denial, and then a twist. God is not one who personally knows good and evil. In the sense, what is evil? Evil is that which is separate from him. Does God know intimately that which is separate from him?

No. So he put a twist in it. And the other thing is that the eyes of your eyes will be opened. It sounds like you'll know more. Right? That sounds like it's a good thing. Well, guess what? You'll know more, but it's not going to be good. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable, everything about it, Wow, this is attractive. Is able to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband. What does it say?

Who was with her. With her. Oh! He asked her even though Adam was there. Here's Adam. Okay, here's Adam. He was with her. Okay, the serpent comes up. The serpent comes up. What? I'm just laughing. He was probably pruning a tree or something. So focused on it that he didn't hear what the sermon was. Yeah, this is a typical guy.

No football game on. So when Satan comes up and says, you shall not eat from, you know, as God said, you shall not. Where was Adam? He was there, but... He didn't say anything. Yeah. Right? And then, you shall not surely die. Adam should have said, wait a minute! Instead, silence. He just kind of let it happen. The twist comes, and he just lets his wife get taken in with the twist.

Oh, you're going to know. You have your eyes open. Yeah, oh yeah. Make you wise. Oh, this looks good. Notice that what was there, the tree, the fruit of the tree that they were forbidden to eat from, had things that were by the senses attractive. Looked good, regardless of what God had said.

So here's the husband. He should have had about three opportunities to say something. At this last moment, he should have taken this thing and said, hey, we're not supposed to do this. And he ate also. Then there it goes. The eyes of both of them were open. Oh yeah. And they knew that they were naked, which before wasn't an issue. Right? The end of chapter 2. They knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

Then, in verse 8, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife said, Hi, Lord. No, hid themselves, both of them, from the presence of the Lord. What had happened is, remember the serpent introduced something that would divide the Lord? from the humans, and the serpent introduced something that would divide the man and the woman. The division between the man and the woman, they're reckoning, oh, boy, you've got to get some clothes on. All of a sudden, there was a recognition there, and the division isn't done being made apparent, because the husband's about to blame that woman that you gave me. And so then, as you go down this, Then the division between God and man becomes apparent as we go through the sequence.

And notice the approach there. Then in verse 9, the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? Now, did the Lord know where they were? Yeah. But remember Chapter 2, the Lord didn't just say, okay, I'm going to create a woman. What did He do? He wanted Adam to recognize. What did he do? He asked the question, not because he was ignorant. Where are those crazy people? Where are they hiding? But he wanted them to recognize something's different. I never had to do this before.

This is the first instance of God asking questions to involve us in the process? to get us to recognize. And that's something to see throughout scripture. You'll have questions and even have things. A lot of times you'll see verses in the Bible that will say, if. And people say, well, that just means sense. Well, the reason it doesn't mean just sense is to involve us in the process. And that's what you'll notice that God did in Chapter 2.

I don't want to just make a woman. I want Adam to recognize his need. And here he doesn't just come in, oh, you guys got a problem, bang, bang, bang, see you later. But instead he asks questions and says things and inquires from each of them. Not because he's ignorant, not because he doesn't know the answers, but because he wants them to have the recognition that comes from answering the questions. And he said, I heard Who's this?

I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. That was Adam. There's Adam. I heard the sound of you in the garden and oh no, what's the response? I was afraid. Fear. Fear. Now remember that the serpents made it a division with words between questioning what God had said that also put the division between the man and the woman. Now we see what's the result of this. Now I'm afraid. My eyes are open. Is that a good thing? No. Now I'm afraid of God. And because I was naked, wait a minute, whoa, this is a new thing. And I hid myself. Now this hiding thing, which is brand new. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Not because he was ignorant, but because he wanted them to recognize.

Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? hmm yeah the man said the woman whom you gave to me your fault to be with me it's her fault she gave me from the tree and I ate a little bit of my fault yeah it's your fault and it's her fault I'll take a little bit a little bit of the blame and what God said to the woman so notice the sequence That goes to the man. And why did he go to the man first? He had given the instruction to the man. Yeah, he told him. The man was the one who had gotten the instruction, one. Two, the man is the one who, because of his headship responsibility, was the one to go to. Right. Adam, you've got some answering to do, okay?

And Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, and the serpent deceived me, and I ate. The serpent deceived me. And so the serpent did it. Now, the New Testament, Paul, as he wrote, does recognize that the woman was deceived. Adam knew exactly what was wrong and said nothing. And so, and I ate. It's interesting, the and I ate thing, both of them said that, and it was quick. Eve's answer was shorter.

The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle. So now, notice, question of the man, question of the woman, did he question the serpent? Nope. Starts right in. The Lord God said to the serpent, and why didn't he question the serpent? The serpent was already fallen. Yeah, the man was asked questions, and the woman was asked questions, not because God didn't know the answer, but because he wanted the man and the woman to be involved in the thought process. He already dealt with the serpent. The serpent, you know, hey, you know where you stand. And it wasn't a matter of dealing with that.

Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your bell you shall go, and thus you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."

Now, this particular verse is looked upon as the first instance of pointing to the Savior. In enmity between you and the one between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head, because the head wound is fatal, and you shall bruise him on the heel, an injurious but non-fatal wound, looking to the Lord's crucifixion but resurrection. But the serpent, Satan's condemnation is forever. And you see this Satan referred to in Revelation chapter 20 and identified as that serpent of old.

To the woman he said, and so now you notice, here's the sequence. I talk to the man, I talk to the woman, ask him questions. Then I talked to the serpent. I basically go to the return sequence, chiasm. Return sequence. Now the serpent then is the turning point in the chiasm. Now back to the woman.

To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. So it's interesting. This anticipates that you're going to have children even as I had it before. So children are not a part of the curse either. Right. Besides, there would be truthful multiply. Right? Right.

You may wonder about that at times. I will multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children. Think about that. Certainly you can look at physical pain in the child. bearing, but there's also even the child rearing. I think a woman has upon her a unique burden. Her relationship to these children is different. Because she carried them? Yeah. In other words, for the man, it's, all right, I had a part in this and I dearly love this woman. But for the woman, she carried them. They came out of her body and she carried them for three quarters of a year.

And so there's a different connection. Plus, you know, certainly we have options now, but even breastfeeding has their continued Reliance upon the the woman and interestingly in the culture even in biblical times It's common to breastfeed up to three to four even up to five years old That amazing But nonetheless, there was an ongoing connection to these children that the woman has that's unique. It doesn't mean the father doesn't love them, and I'm not saying that at all, but she has an emotional connection to those children that is quite different. And that's changing a lot more diapers, too. Yes. In the middle of the night. Because what good does Dad do at that point? And they just want Mom.

It says, Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you. One of the things, your desire shall be for your husband. A woman is made for relationship. And yet, and women are constructed that way, the relationship, they're all about that. They're all about that relationship. Your desire shall be for that relationship with this guy. You will have a connection to him.

And then the other thing, and he will rule over you, it's not a statement that he is somehow given permission to abuse that, but this authority thing. Notice, did he have authority before? He did have an authority place before. But now we've got it in an environment, the fall has taken place.

We've got an environment where this bearing the children and having the children all of a sudden has a sense of pain and burden it didn't have before. And my note here says about your desirability for your husband that her attraction for the man and his headship over her will become intimate aspects of her life in which she experiences trouble and anguish rather than unalloyed joy and blessings. I've never read that before. I think the thing is if you look at it, does the Lord have a biblical relationship in mind for a husband and wife?

Even now after the fall? Yeah. Is there a godly purpose for it? Yes. And yet at the same time, there is an element of struggle in it that wasn't there before. There is an element of wrestling with that. I have this longing for this man. He's busy with all the other stuff. I need the relationship with him and it's hard to get him to understand. I've got things going on in me I don't understand and I want him to understand.

There are tensions that all of a sudden, it may have been an element before, but all of a sudden the magnitude is much greater. And you notice that the whole set of family relationships is all involved in this thing too. You've got the children and you've got the husband and all these things. She's going to be bearing a lot and all these relationships will weigh on her. All these relationships will weigh on her.

What? I received an email this week that was a funny story. Did I send it to you? Yeah. Then to Adam. Here's back to Adam. He started off asking the question to Adam, went to the woman, went to the serpent, whom he didn't ask any questions of. Then back to the woman, and now finally back to the man. So here's completed the chiasm, right? And then back to Adam here.

Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, now we've got to ask a question here. Does this mean that a man is not supposed to listen to the voice of his wife? I'm guessing no. Okay, then what's wrong here? Why is this a problem? I think it's the hand, right?

Well, and he didn't... Stop her and gently correct her and say, oh no. It's because you've listened to the voice of your wife in this thing in which she was deceived. Right. The serpent came along and he was apparently there. Right. And twisting came along. But then the final problem was she was deceived and you just went right along with it. Right.

She said and offered this thing, oh it looks good. And where he knew better, he didn't do the right thing, he got sucked in. Knowing what was right, and knowing his position, he abdicated. And he was eaten from the tree about which I commanded you. So you notice the connection there? I told you, saying you shall not eat from it.

The problem was with Adam. That's where the relationship with God was the connection. Adam's relationship with God and what God said was the connection there. Notice, what we see in chapter 2 was the Lord told Adam, and what the Lord repeats to Adam here is, I told you, your relationship with me, that's what God threatened here.

You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, because from it you are taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

That wasn't the case before, was it? Before, was he supposed to cultivate the crops and the trees? Yes, but it wouldn't be painful. It would be enjoyable. And when you're all done, you're going back to that dust instead of you're going to be around here forever. Now, the question we've got to ask, well, heaven sakes, this was written at a time when 90% of the population lived on agriculture. Now I think it's something like two. Is this still true? How is it still true?

Work is hard. You've got to make a living. Even if you have a pretty good work situation, stuff gets gnarled up and everything was going great until this guy got sick or this guy didn't show up because he got in an accident. We were doing great until this other guy flubbed. It's something. Boy, try your best. Bring all the competence you can. Think things through clearly. Make the best plans. It's got thorns and thistles. That's the thing. Here's the man and he's putting his focus on all this. I've got to earn a living for this family. He has a significant focus on that area.

You're just saying this is not all going to turn up roses. There are thorns on them. They don't taste good. Yeah. And so you see there is still this impact that by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. There is this sense of grueling. You're going to have to strain. You can eat? Yeah, you can eat. You're going to have to really work for it. It's going to work hard and it's going to yield a lot of thistles and thorns.

And then verse 20, Now the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And some have pointed out that this is also a life given. for Adam and Eve. Notice that killing animals wasn't a part of the process here. So in order to clothe them, a life was taken.

Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life. eat and live forever. So interesting to live forever in this fallen state. One of the reasons for barring humans from access to the tree of life is so that we might see a need for a savior. See, death stands out there as something that tells us, hey, you know, I need to deal with someone.

I remember when I was in college, the very early part, at that time they had various PE classes that you had to take. I was glad to take them. I thought it was good. One of them I signed up for was just a jogging class. You go out there and run during your class period. The coach for that was Coach Noonan. I remember being out there. I finished my run.

And I was out there with a few other guys and Coach Noonan and talking to them and somehow the conversation got around. And I was talking to him and I was not accidentally saying, we somehow got into the conversation and I said, well, each one of us is going to die at some point. And that's something we've got to reckon with. And I remember Coach Noonan saying, well, I don't want to die. That really bummed him out, but just a recognition. I think if you look at it, you're going to say, oh, here's this death, this awful thing. The recognition of it is one of the things that can drive us to recognize the need for the Savior.

So what the Lord did here, it may at first seem, well, heavens, you took away the opportunity for living forever, but as living forever in that condition, that fallen state, continuing decay, the Lord cut it off. It's interesting, right there at the end of verse 22, the sentence cuts off in the Hebrew. That's why a lot of them will have a dash or something at the end of verse 22.

Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden. It's like an unthinkable thought. We can't let that happen. The Lord God sent them out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out and at the east of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

So anyway, that's the quick run through on chapters two and three, but I think a lot of it recognizing both in chapter two the things that God intended for marriage at the outset without the fall into sin as part of the picture, and then the impacts of sin in terms of what it means for the man and the woman. Does God intend marriage to continue? Yes. Has it been impacted? Oh, definitely.

And something else that's not revealed until the New Testament is that we are married for a lifetime. Under what we saw in Chapter 2, that was going to go on forever. But we're married for a lifetime. And while the fact that it has an end in a church seemed like a negative, but instead what it's presented as is an opportunity to live out the eternal, because here you can back to what's eternal, live out an illustration of the eternal relationship between Christ and the church. So that even the fact that we don't live forever in these bodies, is still an opportunity and it still points to what's eternal for whatever number of years the Lord gives us.

I think it's valuable to take a look at that. What did God intend? What's the way God initially made it? Even seeing that he wanted the man to recognize his need for the woman. Even seeing that the man looked at, this is really the one made for me. And then seeing the results of the fall. knowing all along, especially with the insight we have now because of Ephesians 5, knowing all along that even though, yeah, we're married for a limited lifetime, that it still has eternal significance and that we're a short-term illustration of an eternal relationship between Christ and the Church. So that's awesome. That's a marvelous thing. And I think one other thing, and that is It is possible for both the husband and wife to carry on a fantasy about what some of these things could be.

You can see guys that go on plowing on in their job as if, if I just work a little harder, if I just do a little more, right around the corner, then this job is going to be ultimately, it's going to be like back in the garden. Isn't that what the guy is pursuing? He's trying to get this job to be like it was back in the garden. If I just work a little more at it, if I work a little harder, if I just get this to happen, then we'll be back in the garden.

Then the thorns of thistles won't come up. And ultimately, the longings that the woman has. She's got kids, a husband, a home, and she has longings about how that's supposed to be. Ultimately, what this points to is a recognition, are all these things that God intends, and is it possible to live this out in a godly way, and does this have spiritual purpose? But there's also an important recognition here that in the same way the man can't get back to the garden, the woman won't either, not here on planet earth.

That some sort of dream family kind of thing isn't going to happen. And it doesn't mean we give up on the work. It doesn't mean we give up on the home ever being a good place. But there's also a recognition of this isn't back in the garden. This isn't the way it was. And chasing the elusive dreams can be in itself a huge problem.

The woman is never happy because the husband isn't making this like it was back in the garden. The man is never happy because he wants this, to use the analogy, this tilling and toiling to get him back in the garden. that the ultimate hope is in the Lord and in His salvation and in His working in the kids and in the husband and in the wife and in the marriage and in the Lord's salvation and in the hope that the Lord has for us. Not because we're ever going to work hard enough or pull hard enough or push hard enough to get it back in the garden. It can frustrate a marriage to have husband and or wife with back in the garden fantasies. It sets up for profound disappointment. How can I ever satisfy my wife? I can't make things back in the garden. She'll never be happy. So there's guilt and frustration?

Yeah. And the woman, she wants her husband to succeed at work and he's trying real hard and he's just trying to get things back to the way they were in the garden and it doesn't happen. It seems like a real point of maturity in your Christian life to realize that. The blessings we have are beyond the garden. They're better than the garden. I think that's the key. It is one, not to try to push the husband and wife to work to get back to the garden, but to recognize, okay, let's be realistic about this.

What has God made this to be and what is my hope? Where have I really got my heart's home? And to look to those things, that's what's going to make for satisfaction in the home. did everything right today and the kids are all just right in line and they all you know washed themselves the way they're supposed to and got dressed and behaved just perfectly and the husband got home on time and you know yeah everything was good everybody was happy with the dinner you know and everybody had a wonderful time and we all went to bed and everybody was happy I'm not saying that you just let go of mediocrity, but just a recognition of where's my hope and not setting the other partner up for impossible.

You didn't make this back in the garden for me, so I'm ticked. And it can be a matter of the wife having expectations of the husband or the husband having expectations of the wife. Both ways can create a real problem. And of course then you get a lot of this each to it on the other kind of thing because in the bottom line You didn't pull off the garden phenomenon for me. It's a key recognition.

Where's my hope? What defines love? What are we in this marriage for? Where is the marriage going? Does the marriage point back to the garden and we're trying to get there? Or does the marriage point to the eternal relationship between Christ and the church?

What a better hope that is. Yeah, far better. This is good stuff. This is key stuff. Even in coming to a sense of reality about where things are at, because it's hopeful, because we have a future and a hope. The Lord has a ministry in each person in your family, each one, and that's cool. He has a ministry for each person in the family.

OK, let's see. We're going to go ahead and meet the next three. Sundays, take off the last Sunday in March. And so I think you guys got this. I sent out a couple versions of the schedule. We saved the most recent. Yeah, the most recent one, which is in a spreadsheet format and has things going through the 18th. That's right.

So we've communicated all the weekends we're gone. Yeah, well, you'll be gone that last I haven't made a plan for April yet. But obviously we won't be meeting on Easter Sunday anyway. We will not be meeting on April 1st. Probably what we will do, and I'll just kind of pull, probably what we'll do is take the first couple of Sundays off in April and go for the last if we can get at least one of the couples.

And we do have other people that are listening to it. It's funny, this might seem like a small class, but we also have other people just like Roy was bringing up. Other people that are listening and picking up on this. Well, hello to all of you. Lord, as we look at this, these are precious truths. There is at once both a very realistic recognition of the things that are in place because of what What choice was made by Adam and we in him, and yet what hope we have being in you and living out for whatever earthly time you allot the eternal relationship between Christ and the church. That's just a blessing that is just phenomenal and a certain hope. We give you thanks for that. In Jesus' name, amen.