"The Curse on the Man" -- 8/10/08

Sunday, August 10, 2008

THE CURSE ON THE MAN
Gen. 3:17-19

If you are six years old or younger, please answer this question for me. Who was the first man on the earth? That’s right, it was Adam. Now you that are a bit older, what do you think of Adam? I’m not sure I like the man. When I was a boy, Adam made life hard for me. If you will recall, because of Adam’s sin, God told him that the ground would bring forth thorns and thistles for him. The bad thing is that the thorns and thistles didn’t stop with Adam. All variety of weeds were still growing where I lived. And because they kept growing, my dad assigned me to keep cutting them down. Even as an eight and nine-year-old boy, my dad would give me the hoeing assignment before he left for work. Don’t you feel sorry for me? I’m not sure who to blame – my dad or Adam.

We have dealt with the curse on the serpent and Satan, the curse upon the woman, and now we come to the curse upon Adam. Remember that the entire human race was plunged into sin and death because of the disobedience that took place in the garden. That in itself is bad enough, but now in verses 14-19 we find that there were additional curses directed specifically at the serpent and Satan, the woman, and the man. So today we will look at Gen. 3:17-19 to see what God had to say to Adam, as a result of his disobedience. Read Gen. 3:17-19…
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

This passage breaks down very easily into the cause of the curse, the curse itself, and the consequences of the curse.

I. The Cause of the Curse

So why did this curse come on Adam? After all, it was Eve who first ate of the fruit. She was the one who gave it to Adam. He only did what she did. Now if you will recall, this was precisely the argument Adam put before God. Let’s go back and read again Gen. 3:6-12…
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 8. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

When God confronted Adam, he blamed the woman which God gave to him. Surely Adam didn’t bear any of the responsibility. God shouldn’t have given him that woman in the first place. She is the one who convinced him to eat the fruit.

The Lord did not ignore the fact that Adam brought the woman into the picture, as he tried to shift the blame from himself. Instead of ignoring Adam’s excuse, the Lord began at that very point. He said, “Because you have harkened unto the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree…” Recently someone asked about this. Is this just an incidental statement about Adam listening to his wife? In other words, the big deal is that he ate from the tree from which the Lord commanded him not to eat, but we can’t put any emphasis upon the part about him listening to his wife.

I must say that the Lord doesn’t waste many words in the scriptures. Isn’t it interesting that the fact that Adam listened and obeyed Eve is placed right at the first. Remember that Eve basically committed two sins – she didn’t submit to her husband but went out on her own, and she ate of the forbidden fruit. In the same way, Adam committed two sins – he followed his wife and he ate the forbidden fruit. With Adam, this is spelled out very clearly. Adam and Eve turned God’s order upside down. Eve led and Adam followed.

I am well aware that just two weeks ago Norman spoke to the deacons and strongly encouraged them to listen to their wives. He was not only speaking to the deacons, but to all of us men. And what he said was entirely appropriate, especially in the culture in which we live. A man who wants to follow the Lord needs to be sensitive to his wife, for she often has wise counsel. I wish I had learned that a long time ago. On the other hand, we desperately need this warning. Men, there will very likely be times when your wife will lead in the wrong direction, and you must not follow her.

We must put this in context. Adam and Eve were not in a situation where they needed to seek God’s wisdom concerning what they should do. They knew full well what needed to be done, because God had told Adam clearly that they were not to eat of the fruit from the tree that was in the middle of the garden. Eve stepped out on her own and was deceived by the serpent. Remember, as we read a couple of weeks ago from I Tim. 2, Adam was not deceived. He had personally received the command from God Himself. He was not in need of any counsel at all, because God had clearly spoken. But now his wife is telling him to do the opposite of what God said. At this point, Eve actually became a messenger of Satan, tempting Adam to disobey Almighty God. That is why the Lord rebuked Adam for listening to his wife.

Men, there are times when we are weak. It’s at those times that we are prone to listen to any counsel that will support what we want to do. That is not the counsel we need, whether given by an unbeliever or even a precious wife. We must test all counsel by the Word of God. Had Adam done that, he would have refused to listen to Eve. God gave the man the responsibility to lead his wife and family in the way of righteousness. But how can he do it? By listening and heeding the Word of God above all else. May the Lord give us grace to do that. May the Lord give us wisdom to know when to seek counsel from our wife and when to simply act upon the Word of God. Remember the wife of Job, who said to her husband, “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9).

Ultimately, the curse came because Adam did what God told him not to do. It is a serious thing to disobey God. No matter what excuse we may give for disobedience, it is still serious. If we want to be obedient, there is no better place to start than Psalm 1:1-3…

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

II. The Curse Itself

So the curse came upon Adam because of his disobedience, but what exactly is the curse? Let’s read it again in Gen. 3:17b-18… “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” God said the ground was cursed for Adam’s sake. In other words, “The ground is cursed because of you.” Now understand that this did not hurt the ground in any way. Ground is ground; it has no feelings. It was cursed because of Adam. In cursing the ground, the Lord brought much pain upon Adam.

Notice the words, “In sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” God had said to Eve, “In sorrow you shall bring forth children.” Now he speaks those same words “in sorrow” to Adam. Yes, Adam will eat from the produce of the earth, but it will be in sorrow.

Where do we get our food? From the ground. Out of the ground grows every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable. But what about animals. While the ground doesn’t produce the animals, those animals are sustained by the food that comes from the ground. So it is right to say that the ground produces all of our food. That’s why the Lord speaks of Adam eating from the ground.

In verse 18 we read that the Lord tells Adam that the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles. Most of us would refer to them simply as weeds. The amazing thing about thorns and thistles is that they seem to just grow by themselves. If we want a garden, we have to go out and work hard. But what will happen if we just plow the land and leave it alone? It will produce a crop, but the crop will consist of all kinds of undesirable weeds. And these thorns and thistles are often very prolific and hard to get rid of. One commentator tells of the acanthum vulgare, a thistle which produces up to 100 heads with up to 400 seeds in every head. So if we suppose that one such plant has just 80 heads with 300 seeds in each, the first crop will produce 24,000 more plants. The second generation will total 576 million, and the third will produce a staggering 13.8 trillion.

How many of you are familiar with the kudzu plant. It is a beautiful woody vine that was transplanted from Japan to the southeastern United States from 1935 to the early 50’s. If you have ever seen it, you know that it is beautiful. It covers things and gives the effect of a lush green carpet. The problem is in the fact that it does indeed cover things. Those who transplanted it did not fully realize that the climate of the southeastern U.S., with its heavy rainfall and warm temperatures, would be perfect for the supergrowth of kudzu, but everybody realizes it now. A single kudzu vine can reach heights of over 95 feet, as it climbs tall trees. Its stems can reach four inches in diameter and its tap root can be 8 inches in diameter and extend 12 feet into the ground. The most amazing thing is how fast they can grow. Once a vine is well established, it can grow a foot in one day and up to 60 feet in a single season. No wonder it has earned the nicknames “foot a night vine,” “mile a minute vine,” and (my favorite) “The vine that ate the South.” And what did man do to make it grow? Nothing. In 1953 it was officially a pest weed. In spite of all the efforts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the last 55 years, it is still a pest weed and costs us a half billion dollars a year in lost croplands and control costs.

Now let’s ask a question: Were there thorns and thistles in the garden of Eden? After all, God did put Adam in the garden and tell him to “dress it and to keep it” (2:15). It seems clear from the text of scripture that the thorns and thistles were a new thing with the curse. God didn’t say He would multiply thorns and thistles; He said that the earth would bring forth thorns and thistles. It sounds like a new thing. So what did Adam do in the garden to dress and keep it? In our understanding it seems that tending a garden is synonymous with keeping the weeds out, but that is not necessarily so. Perhaps all that was necessary was the picking of the fruit. The Lord said nothing about him working or toiling in the garden. Such toil was the consequence of the curse, as we will see.

So the ground is cursed, but it is in relation to Adam. Why was it specifically a curse on Adam for the ground to bring forth thorns and thistles? Why wouldn’t that be just as much a curse on Eve? Go back again to the curse on the woman. The curse brought sorrow into her domain of life – her relationship with her children and her relationship with her husband. In the same way, the curse upon the man brought sorrow into his domain, which was the field. It was the man’s responsibility to provide for his family, and that provision ultimately came from the ground. It was Adam who was vitally related to the soil, not Eve. So we see that this curse was specifically tailored for the man.

III. The Consequence of the Curse

The curse came as a result of Adam listening to his wife and disobeying the direct command of God. The curse itself was upon the ground. God said that the ground was cursed and would produce thorns and thistles. Whereas Adam had been familiar with the fruit of the garden, now he would become familiar with the abundance of pesky thorns and poisonous weeds.

Now the Lord didn’t leave the consequence of this curse to the imagination. He spelled out what it would mean for Adam and for those men who would follow him. First, He said that in sorrow Adam would eat from the produce of the earth all his life. God did not say that the earth would cease to produce food for man and animals, but there would be a change. Now the man would have to contend with the thorns and thistles. The consequence of the curse is spelled out most clearly in verse 19, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground…” The sweat of the face speaks of toil. The perspiration is formed as a kind of cooling system for the body; it is the evaporative cooling principle. Adam would be able to make a living, but there would be plenty of toil involved.

In our society we have less appreciation for this reality than most people in the world. I read that Americans spend slightly less than 10% of their income on food. To people in third world countries, that would be absolutely unbelievable, because they spend most of their waking hours toiling to put food on the table. The problem isn’t that the ground will not bring forth food, for it certainly will, but it will not do so without great effort on man’s part. That is because God Himself cursed the ground and announced that man’s eating of bread would be accompanied by the sweat of his face.

Before Adam’s sin, food came easily. All Adam had to do was stroll through the garden and pick any fruit he chose. After his sin, things changed drastically. Notice the words at the end of verse 18, “and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” There is no record that Adam ate the herb of the field before his sin. Let’s go back and read the summary of creation in Gen. 2:4-5…
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

No longer would Adam be able to casually pick any fruit he chose; now he would have to cultivate the field and grow what he would need to live on. And it would not be easy, because he would have to fight thorns and thistles. He would be at the mercy of droughts, floods, and every other so-called natural disaster that has the power to destroy the crops he would grow.

We men might look at this whole scenario and say, “This has absolutely no application to me, because I’m not a farmer.” Understand that the application is much wider than this. Those of us who don’t grow our own food are at the mercy of those who do. Ultimately, what we eat comes from the ground. We work to make money to purchase what others grow. This curse is all about man in the workplace. While women may also be in the workplace, it has always been God’s design that the man provide for his family. Yes, there are times where temporary exceptions may be made, but when a man doesn’t provide for his family, there are going to be problems. While a woman’s domain is the home, a man’s domain is the workplace.

Even in this country, where we know unprecedented material prosperity, God’s curse still lies in the workplace. While there are some people who enjoy their work, most men endure their jobs. Their job provides the money they need to live. For some, it provides the money they need to go on the next big vacation. While there may be a certain pleasure in work, it is almost always a mixed blessing. Why? Because of God’s curse upon the workplace. Men in our society may never see a thorn or thistle, but rest assured that their workplace has plenty of non-physical thorns and thistles. Maybe it’s an unreasonable boss. Perhaps it’s the monotony of the work itself. Maybe it is the relationship with other workers. A man’s work is not without problems that stem from this curse.

We don’t find a great deal of hope in verse 19. Let’s read it again: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This curse will endure until a man returns to the ground. And every man will return to the ground, because he is made of the dust of the ground and he will return to the dust of the ground. Until he does, he will earn his living by the sweat of his brow. For Adam, that meant over 900 years of this labor and sweat. I find no evidence that Adam had a retirement plan.

It may seem that we don’t feel the weight of this curse in American society. After all, most people expect to retire by age 65 or before. And because we are so brainwashed with the individual mentality, we think that a 70-year-old man who is retired lives without any sweat-producing toil. The truth is that someone is laboring to provide food for that man. He may not be working himself, but someone is. The struggle for food continues. And down through history, the majority of the people in the world have battled to provide enough to simply survive. That is the consequence of this curse.

Conclusion

Is there any solution? We saw that the godly woman who continues in faith and love and holiness receives deliverance from God’s curse in her relationship with husband and children. But what about the man? Is there any reversal of the curse in his case? If a man truly loves the Lord, will the Lord provide all his needs without the man having to work? I don’t advise you to try it, especially in light of Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonian believers: “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (II Thes. 3:10). So what is the solution?

We all know that in the New Testament we read about servants, about bond-slaves. Paul gave instructions to slaves and to their masters as well. There is much I don’t understand about that whole situation, but we do need to understand that what we view as slavery in the New Testament must not be confused with slavery in the more modern world. It had nothing to do with people being kidnapped, taken to another continent, and treated as something less than human. That is not the picture of the New Testament, and certainly not among believers. There are many legitimate parallels to be drawn between the servant of the New Testament and the employee in today’s world.

With that in mind, let’s look at a couple of New Testament passages. Let me read to you from Titus 2:9-10. I am going to read it out of the New American Standard, as I think the language will be a bit easier to understand: “Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.” Understand that Paul is talking to Christian bond-slaves. These were people who had chosen, out of love and respect for their masters, to remain slaves and work for them. What might be considered meaningless work by some now takes on great meaning. As they worked hard and demonstrated Christian character, they were actually adorning the doctrine of God our Savior. In other words, they were being used as a testimony for the Lord. In Christ, the workplace becomes the source of Christian witness. It is no longer about just providing for the family, but it is about demonstrating Christ.

Our great example is Jesus Himself. Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus didn’t come to earth in order that others might serve Him. Instead, He came to be a servant, to gladly serve others. In doing so, He ultimately humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His willingness to submit Himself as a servant brought salvation to all those who trust Him. Yes, Jesus finished the work which the Father gave Him to do (Jn. 17:4).

Now come to that familiar verse in Colossians 3. Let’s read from Col. 3:23-24, "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; 24. Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ." The person who is in Christ has a whole new perspective on work. The primary purpose of work is not to please other people, not the employer nor fellow-workers. Its primary purpose is not to build a personal reputation. It’s first purpose is not even to provide food for the family, as important as that is. The great purpose of work is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, our reward is from Him, not from any man. If we work and never get any pay from man, we know that we are really working for the Lord, and He will reward us.

Notice that this applies to all work. “And whatever you do, do it unto the Lord.” It doesn’t matter whether the work is pleasant or distasteful, we do it as to the Lord, and not unto men. Rest assured that the work the Father sent Jesus to do was not pleasant. The Father sent Jesus to die. Though Jesus provided our salvation, ultimately He wasn’t working for us; He was doing the will of His Father. Remember what He said: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work” (Jn. 4:34).

When we have the attitude of our Lord, we are delivered from the curse. Work becomes more than tolerable. It becomes a blessing from the Lord. Work becomes an opportunity for witness.