Good morning.
How are y'all doing today?
I'm doing good, thank you very much.
We like to start our services by welcoming anybody that's joining us here in our sanctuary for the first time,
or if you're joining us online for the first time, we want to say welcome.
We're so glad you're here to worship with us today here at Hosanna.
I've already had a few questions, so I'll just deal with it now.
My throat is, or my lungs have been kind of sick this last week, so my voice sounds a little froggy.
And if I have to stop and cough, forgive me.
Okay, we good?
All right.
Well, this morning we are continuing our look at the results of the fall,
the sin that Adam and Eve committed by looking specifically at the curse on the woman.
So just as a quick recap, you know, we've been reading and studying that sin entered the world
as the serpent deceived Eve into eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
which then she gave to her husband, Adam, who ate with full knowledge
and full understanding that what he was doing was disobedience.
And even though God then addressed them in the order of their responsibility,
if you remember, he addressed the man first, because Adam was responsible for his family.
And so he was the one ultimately responsible.
Then he addressed Eve.
Then he addresses the serpent.
Even though he did that, he's going to go on to curse all three parties involved
according to the upside down order that resulted in the original sin.
He curses the serpent or the creature first.
If you remember, to forever crawl on its belly and to eat dust.
And that was both a literal physical judgment, because we can see that today.
We see snakes are limbless.
They scurry around on their bellies and being so close to the ground.
Of course, the dust is something that just goes into their face all the time.
But it was also a symbolic look of humiliation and defeat.
It was a symbolic picture of being brought low.
And so in that, we saw that God also declared judgment on Satan,
the power that was behind the serpent or working through the serpent or using the serpent,
who is ultimately the one tempting Eve and Adam to sin against God.
And so we talked about how the serpent, the physical serpent,
being cursed to crawl around on its belly and to eat dust,
was to be a forever reminder of the results of sin.
That sin leads to catastrophe.
Sin leads to judgment.
And every time we would look at a snake, we're to remember that as God's creation.
But then it was also symbolic of the humiliation and defeat
of the ultimate ancient serpent, as he's called in Revelation,
and ultimately his final and full defeat that will be at the end.
Additionally, we looked at how God put hostility between the woman and the serpent.
And we talked about the prophetical hostility and the real hostility that this was.
The hostility between the first woman and all of her offspring
and Satan and all who would follow him called his offspring,
really indicating a prophetic battle for the souls of humanity
that would rage from then until the end of time.
And so we've been looking at all of that.
But the most important thing we looked at last week was in the midst of that judgment on the serpent,
in the midst of that declaration falling upon Satan,
in the midst of that hostility, that enmity, that hatred that was then put
between the woman and her offspring and Satan and his followers.
We saw in the midst of all of that that God still spoke of his future plan
to once and for all deal with the poisonous sin nature that now was in all of mankind,
a nature that all of humanity would be born with from then on,
a nature that we would be plagued with.
And then the way God spoke of his future plan,
he did this by speaking of the ultimate offspring of woman,
the ultimate one that would come from her line, God born in the flesh,
God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, the Savior of all mankind,
who would fully and finally defeat Satan,
and it was prophetically spoken by him crushing the head of Satan,
yet in the process that Jesus would be bruised himself by suffering on the cross.
So now with all of that contextual background here
and now with the idea of offspring having just been spoken and fresh in their mind,
God moves on to the curse of the woman, or the curse on the woman,
and by extension all of womankind.
Now this curse on the woman was falling upon her as the one whom all offspring would come from.
All human offspring would come through her, including that ultimate offspring, Jesus Christ,
who was God being born in the flesh.
This was a curse that would not only affect Eve herself,
but every single woman that would be born down to the genetic line of humans.
It was a curse that affected her specific, unique, privileged biological ability,
the ability to bring life into this world.
And it was a curse that addressed the reversal of God's ordained order of leadership and authority in the family,
which was originally intended to be God,
and then the man or the husband who is the head of the household,
then the wife or the woman, and then the creatures that they were supposed to rule over.
But that was all reversed by Eve following the creatures' words instead of God's words
that were given to her through her husband.
And so with the serpent and the creature now being cursed and judged,
we're going to move on to the progenitor of all women, the curse on Eve.
And so we're going to be talking about a lot of different things,
but first we're going to start out by worshiping God.
We want to praise Him, and we just want to lift up His holy name.
You know, we've seen that in certain places of the world right now, such as Paris.
They want to mock the holy name of Jesus Christ.
And we'll talk about that in a little bit, but we are God's people,
and it doesn't matter where we are in the world and who we are.
We praise God. We worship Him.
It is His name that is to be lifted high because He is the Savior, the only Savior of all mankind. Amen?
Let's pray. Father, we love You.
We thank You, God, for who You are, God, and we do lift Your name on high.
Lord, Your Word is holy. Your words are holy.
What You've taught us is holy.
God, You are holy.
And Lord, that means that even Your judgments are holy.
And God, as we've been studying the fall of man and woman through their sin,
their disobedience of You, God, I pray, Lord, that You would continue to speak to us and encourage us, Lord.
God, we are still under so many of the consequences of that sin and the effects of that sin in this world today,
but Lord, it was a just and holy judgment that You laid upon mankind.
Lord, we know that one day we will be fully free of all the effects of the sin,
but God, right now today we know that it is through our relationship with You,
through faith and trust in Your death on the cross that we are relieved of some of the effects of this judgment.
So God, may we understand what You were doing and why You were doing it
and why this judgment fell the way it did, God, and then be encouraged, Lord,
at the solution You brought through Your Son.
Lord, we love You, we praise You, we worship You today.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Okay, so we are going to be in Genesis chapter 3, looking at verse 16.
This is the verse where we find the curse on the woman,
and this comes immediately after God dealt with the serpent and through the serpent Satan himself.
And so let's read the verse together.
Speaking of God here, it says, He said to the woman,
I will intensify your labor pains, you will bear children with painful effort.
Your desire will be for your husband, and yet he will rule over you.
You know, this verse has been the source of much debate over the years,
much debate in our current culture.
This verse is blamed by some as having been used to justify abuse,
to justify control, to justify oppression of women.
And there is some truth to that.
There are people in places that point to this verse
and use it to justify male dominance in the family,
and that is not what it's all about.
It has been wrongly used that way,
but we do have to understand going into what this verse is talking about,
is that there is a radical difference between what is sinful,
abusive control within the marriage context by a husband
and the authority that is granted to him by God.
Okay, those are two mutually separate things.
And so a husband taking the role of spiritual leader in his family
and leading his family and being in that place,
and we'll talk more about that next time, is not abusive.
Okay, what's abusive and sinful is when it's used to subjugate
and dominate and hurt and all of that.
And so obviously one of those is wrong and a terrible perversion
of what is right and good according to God's word.
And so the curse on the woman, it's in two parts, right?
But both of the parts have to do with relationship and family life
and really deals with what I consider the greatest calling,
the greatest gift that God has given to humanity,
which is to be fruitful and to multiply.
That was a part of the call in the very, very beginning
when God created man and woman and he says,
be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.
That was the mission, right?
To be a people that would just grow biologically, multiply out,
and be a people who loved and served God in that relationship.
And so this first part of the curse on woman has to do with her unique
biological privilege of being able to carry children in her womb
and the idea of being pregnant and carrying children
and giving birth to children, which is the wonderful,
beautiful blessing of bringing life into the world.
And then and or, and we'll talk about that, mothering,
which is just being a mother and raising children really in a fallen,
sinful world and we'll talk about that as well.
But all of these things, these three things individually and together,
really are possible interpretations of what the curse is.
And so the second part of the verse is very, very hotly debated.
And it has to do with a woman's relationship to her husband.
So some try and say that the second part of the curse has to do with
a woman's simply trying to control their husband's via seduction, via sex.
And the interpretation of that centers around that word desire
that we see there and we're going to talk about that.
And then other people say it simply has to do with a woman's desire to lead
or to be in or to take authority and leadership over her husband
and her family as Eve did in the garden.
We've been talking about that for a couple weeks.
And that all centers around the interpretation of the phrase,
yet he will rule over you.
So my goal here is to not just look at the words of the verse and all that,
but also look at how these words and phrases are used in other places of
scripture so that we can together come to an interpretation of what he is saying
and then through that come up with applications.
So let's start with the first part of verse 16.
He said to the woman, I will intensify your labor pains
and you will bear children with painful.
Around this hostility that God said I'm going to put hostility between the woman's
offspring and between Satan's offspring or interpretively the people that would
follow after who he is.
And so that word offspring that he uses there, for the woman it's referring to her
biological children, right?
Those are the offspring that she would bear.
And then for Satan, he doesn't have kids in that sense.
So it's those that would be of his nature, of his mission, of his plan following
after him.
And so the judgment moves from that now on to the woman starting with her
privileged role, right?
And we talked about that, the call of mankind was to be fruitful and multiply.
And so the first part of the curse has to do with that, addressing the method by
which she would do so, bearing children.
And so there's two parts to this as well.
There's intensified labor pains and painful effort in bearing children.
Both have to do with this God gifted, naturally joyous area of her life, but
both involve pain, increased in intensity and the effort put forth in doing so.
So, you know, really biblically, one of the most central aspects of a woman's
existence is her ability to carry into birth and to mother life.
That is one of the unique blessings that God gave to you.
That is why I believe Satan has been attacking it so aggressively and trying to
pervert the idea that, ladies, you have been given a unique and beautiful
privilege.
And now our world's trying to say, no, men could have babies too.
And well, but how can we say that?
Because we say nobody's a man or a woman, right?
It's all confusing.
But the devil has been trying to attack this very beautiful privilege that God
gave to woman.
At the very core, man and woman together were given four very important
distinct functions in Genesis 1 verse 28.
And I mentioned it already.
He said be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.
That was the mission that God gave to them, the call, how to live and how to
serve me and all of that.
And so this was accomplished in Eve's part.
On Eve's part, her part of that function was conceiving, carrying, birthing, and
raising children.
That was her part of the being fruitful and multiplying.
And then ultimately filling the earth, right?
That was her role in that.
Now both the man and woman were involved, and we understand that biologically.
But Eve's part was the conceiving, the carrying, the birthing, and the raising.
So the idea was that together they would accomplish God's plan.
Together they would accomplish God's will.
Together they would do everything they were created to fulfill in that sense, to
be a blessing in that regard.
And so man would supply the seed.
Woman would then incubate, carry that child, grow that child.
And then in the process of her carrying and letting that child grow in her womb,
man was to provide for her, to tend the garden, to collect the food, to take care
of her, to protect her before, obviously, because she was his wife, during that
pregnancy, and then be there as a part of the birth and then the raising that
child, his part in all of that was to provide for that family.
We see that from the very, very beginning.
And the reason man's role was there is so that his wife would be healthy and
whole and safe in all ways, able to succeed in that call that God had on her
life.
That it wouldn't be a burden of her, it would be a joy.
And so this is the idea when they were both working together and this calling
on man to provide for his family and to protect and provide for his wife so
that together they would accomplish God's will in that.
We're going to deal with that part next time on the curse on the man.
But some of you possibly, whether here in the room or watching online, you may
have just heard that.
And regardless of the words that actually came out of my mouth, what you
may have heard is, oh, so women only exist to have babies.
Male privilege, right?
Chauvinism.
Now, that mindset, I just want to encourage you.
One, that's not what I'm saying and I'm going to deal with that here more, but
that idea is a poisonous lie from the pit of hell, okay?
The devil wants women who are the only blessed conduit through which life comes
upon this planet by God's design.
The devil wants women to disdain that God-given honor.
The devil wants women to view pregnancy, carrying, bearing, and raising children
as some bad thing, as some limiting thing, right?
It's been a while now that women go, no, I want to pursue my career.
And so the idea of having children, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
pursuing a career, by the way, but they view children as something that's going
to hinder that and being a mom is something that's bad because it's going to
hinder all these other things and that's exactly how the devil wants women to
think.
Because if women say, I don't want to have children, guess what happens to the
human race?
It ends.
And so I want to be very clear that I'm not suggesting that women are in any
way restricted to or limited to only bearing children and being mothers.
What I'm trying to establish here is that it's a high privilege.
It is a high calling to do so.
It is the one thing that God has gifted you women to do that men can't do
regardless of what our culture says.
The ability to mother.
Dads try, but dads aren't moms.
And they're not meant to be moms.
It's meant to be a team.
Now, and I also understand as I get into this, because I want to be sensitive to
there are women possibly in this room and watching online where you can't have
children.
There are people who maybe have had children or lost their children in the
process of the carrying that child.
And we're going to address some of that later, but please don't receive what I'm
saying here as trying to make you feel like you're less than.
That is not what I'm saying.
But the fact that there are women in here that may be experiencing the effect of
the curse, which is the disease and the sickness and the malfunction of the
human body, doesn't diminish the beautiful high calling and priority of what
God created women to do in a broad sense.
Okay?
We all agree on that?
Sweet.
All right.
So, but like I was saying, you know, the idea for womankind as a whole, it
really is the greatest and really most important opportunity to fulfill God's
call on humanity.
It's massive.
To be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to birth life, to raise godly
children, to train them up in the way they should go, right, as the Bible says,
that they would then live their own lives going forth carrying the standard of
righteousness, loving God, proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ.
I really don't think there's any higher honor for women.
But the devil has worked hard to get mankind to view it as exactly the opposite,
to view carrying children as an inconvenience, to be removed like a cancer,
to view mothering and raising children as some outdated or patriarchal method of
control, to have the idea that a woman whose first priority is raising her kids
means that she's somehow weak or she's somehow unskilled, and that is all
ridiculous offensive nonsense.
Don't let the world tell you that because they're wrong.
So, yeah, man would do his part as well in the process of bringing kids into the
world, but their roles in the process, they were distinct.
They were very different but complementary.
Being a parent was never meant to be a solo endeavor, and it is a tragedy today
that there are so many single moms and single dads, and I applaud you for putting
in that effort to do what was meant to be a team effort in church.
That's why we rally around single parents, to help them, to bless them, to
support them, because they are doing something that is an incredibly beautiful
calling, but they're doing it on their own, and that's not how it was meant to be.
So if you know single parents that are struggling, help them out.
Step in.
Do something.
Can I buy dinner tonight?
Can I whatever it may be, you know, because they need our help, right?
They just need our help, and this isn't meant to diminish anything you're doing
as a single parent, but it's meant to say we recognize that you're doing something
amazingly awesome, and how can we help?
That's the idea that I'm talking about here.
So, but all of this birthing, raising, carrying, all of that idea, it was meant
to be this wonderfully joyous, almost effortless blessing in the forever
paradise of Eden.
It was meant to be this blessing of just joy that was always in the presence of
God Almighty and perfect fellowship, and you know, for those of you who have been
parents, imagine, imagine raising a sinless child with a sinless husband.
We can't imagine that at all.
Imagine what that was like or going to be like in the garden.
How blissful, how joyous, how amazing, and yet because of sin, this high
God-given calling was cursed.
Now, it's still a fulfilling joy.
It's still a blessing from God, but it's tainted with the effects of the curse
and the judgment, and so it's not without heightened pain.
We're going to talk about that both physically and emotionally.
There's pain that comes in the carrying of children, in the birthing of children,
and in the raising of children, and those three things from that point on will be
incredibly hard and incredibly taxing and incredibly hurtful for a woman, and so
let's parse this real quick.
The first thing he talks about there is labor pains.
He says, I will intensify your labor pains.
In the Hebrew, that is a word called aitzaban, aitzaban, and what that word
refers to is simply pain and anguish as a result of some difficult work, right?
Now, contextually, the difficult work is childbirth and childbearing, and so it's
pain and anguish as a result of childbearing.
In other translations of the Bible, it's rendered pain in childbearing, pain in
your pregnancy, pain in childbirth, and so what this phrase is referring to is the
whole process of carrying a child to term and then giving birth to that child.
That is what it's referring to very specifically.
Now, he says there, I will intensify it.
That means to become greater or more numerous.
What's interesting, though, is what this indicates is in God's original design of
woman, without flaw, without sin, in an immortal body incapable of death, perfect
in every way, pregnancies and giving birth wasn't like it is today.
It wasn't as painful, but when he says, I will intensify it, that does indicate
that there was some pain, some discomfort in giving birth, but nothing like the
stressful, the extremely painful suffering that pregnancy and birth can be today.
Now, I don't know exactly what that means and what that would look like, but that's
what the word indicates.
So he says, I will intensify your labor pains, and he says you will bear children
with painful effort.
Now, that phrase almost sounds exactly the same, doesn't it?
It's like is he saying the same thing twice?
Well, the phrase there, painful effort, is a different word than the one he used
with labor pains, right?
I will intensify your labor pains, and then he goes, you will bear children with
painful effort.
Different Hebrew word altogether.
This word, painful effort, has the same meanings as the other one, but an
additional meaning.
So it also means hard, difficult, painful manual labor.
It's referring to physical pain in a general sense, but it also includes
emotional pain.
It can be translated sorrow or suffering in the sense of a mental type of
suffering, and so he goes, you will bear children with painful effort.
And then that word, bear children, again, is referring to the delivery of a child
and the whole process of labor, and so this word includes the emotional effects
of carrying a child, right?
And I've lived with one, my assistant Irene and her husband.
I live in the same place with them, and I was there through her pregnancy, and
so although I have not personally got to experience that, I got to experience
that in an auxiliary way, and yeah, wow, lots of emotional pain and lots of
physical pain through all of that.
There's a difficult work in carrying a child.
And so what this curse is saying is woman, you who bring life into the world,
you whose offspring are going to come into this world and ultimately be at war
with Satan, you're going to do so in much greater pain, much greater difficulty
than before.
That's Eve's curse.
Eve, you had it good.
You were going to bear children.
It was going to hurt a little bit, but it wasn't going to be anything like it is
now, but because you disobeyed God, your call, your special, unique calling to
be a part of being fruitful, multiplying by bearing the children and giving birth
and raising them, that is now going to be extremely emotionally and physically
difficult, painful even.
You know, there's a lot of fears and anxieties that some women have that
accompany childbirth, right?
There's been a lot of times where I've talked to women and they're worried.
Am I going to have a healthy outcome?
Is my baby going to be born healthy?
Am I going to be okay in all of that?
Of course, in our modern world, it's like, can I afford it?
Then they have concerns.
Will the child grow up to be a good person or are they going to be the
Antichrist, right?
We're always worried, you know, praying about that.
You have anxiety about the world the child is being born into, right?
Do I want to bring a child into this world because this world is so dark and
gross?
And then, you know, women even have personal emotional anxieties and stuff.
Will I be a good mother, right?
Can I do it?
These are all things that I've been told to run through the mind of a woman
thinking about childbirth.
None of that existed prior to the fall.
None of it.
Eve never thought, am I going to be a good mom?
She just was going to be a mom.
Eve was never worried about the world she was going to bring a child into
because it was perfect, right?
All of this is a result of the fall.
And so after the fall, every time a woman would get pregnant, carry a child,
give birth to that child, all that emotional pain, all of that physical pain,
it would be a reminder that when Eve traded obedience to God's word, which was
given to her through her husband's authority as head of the house, she also
traded the effortless, worry-free, lightly physically uncomfortable experience of
being fruitful and multiplying in paradise.
And she traded it all for a much more physically and emotionally painfully
intensified one.
And so the result of this, the result of the fall is that there are women who
simply don't want to have children.
That's fairly common in our world today.
There's a lot of women who don't want to have children and they have a lot of
reasons, but one of the ones I hear a lot is because they're scared of one or
more of the things that I listed.
And so the devil just smiles when that goes through our mind.
Aha, well, I've stopped that one from doing the unique, beautiful thing that God
equipped them to do.
Now, I do believe there's room in the application of this to include the
physical and emotional pain of raising children, right?
I was on the other side of that as a kid, giving my mom extreme emotional and
physical pain, right?
Yeah, I was not a good kid, at least in my teenage years, you know.
But raising children, right, is hard in every way.
And then you add to that the emotional pain of women who want to carry a child
and they can't, or the emotional pain of carrying a child and they lose it, or
they actually carry the child and give birth and then something tragic happens.
You know, those who have miscarriages or stillbirths or lose their children
prematurely for some reason, those are all things that are a result of sin and
death entering into our world.
And the greatly painful experiences for women, they're a result of the fall.
And so I say that to encourage you, if you're hearing this message and you're
grieving in your spirit because you're falling into one of these categories I'm
talking about, I can't have kids and how am I even going to enter into God's
blessing?
I want to so bad.
That's not God punishing you.
That is the result of sin in this world.
Please understand that.
But with all of this stuff just combined together, this once beautifully
perfect call that is unique to women and meant to be an almost effortless joy,
it wasn't taken away from women in the judgment.
It was just made way harder than it was supposed to be.
You know, God could have said, all right, the judgment is you can't ever have
kids anymore.
He didn't do that.
There's a grace in that that women were still going to be able to participate in
that call with their husbands to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and
subdue the earth together.
Like they were still able to participate, but wow, is it going to be much harder
than it was supposed to be.
And so that's the first part of the curse.
The second half, verse 16, it says your desire will be for your husband, yet he
will rule over you.
All right, here we go.
We ready for this?
All right, let's dig into this.
This is the second part of the curse on woman and it has to do with her
relationship to her husband.
Again, these are things that are aimed at what was supposed to be, right?
Aimed at what is and was God's standards in most cases.
See, we talked about this when we looked at the creation of Adam and then the
creation of woman, right?
And I believe that God's intention for most people in most cases is marriage.
Is marriage coming together with another, you know, having that complementary
union, that helpmate that is perfectly complementary to her husband and you
guys together go forth to honor God and to pursue God.
And a part of that is following that call to have kids and to bear children
and raise up the next generation in a godly way, right?
That is, I believe, God's desire for most people in most cases.
But there is a call on some people to be single.
We know that in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
Paul teaches, you know, hey, if you could remain single, that's a good thing
because you're going to have an availability to serve God more than someone
who has to worry about the needs of his wife and his family and stuff.
And so if you're single, don't disdain that, right?
If you don't want to be single, that's fine.
But you pray to God about that.
And you say, God, you know my heart, but while I am single, I'm going to serve
you like my married friends can't, right?
You're just, God, I'm so available to you.
And so that's the idea here.
But some people, they look at, you know, single people go, well, you know,
a single woman, aren't you just dodging the curse then by not getting married?
No.
There are many other effects, many other effects of the curse that we all suffer.
But the whole debate over this verse and the interpretation of this part of it
revolves around the words desire and rule, right?
It sounds weird.
Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
So the question when we read that is what does it mean that a woman's desire will
be for her husband?
Desire what is the idea?
And what does that have to do with him ruling over her?
You know, you would think, isn't it good for a wife to desire her husband?
And absolutely.
Like, you should desire your husband.
You should like him, you should love him.
I know there's times when you don't like them, but that's temporary, right?
It's just there's this process in all of that.
But what is he talking about here?
Well, since the context so far of her curse has been about having children, some
people say her desire here is to want to be sexually active with her husband and
to, you know, keep having children.
But he's going to make the decision about that, and he could say no.
That's how some people interpret this.
But others say it's a second separate curse from the first part, and it just
simply has to do with the authority structure in the family.
That she will want to lead the family just as Eve led Adam in that sense in the sin,
and therefore she isn't given that role in the family.
She has to submit to her husband's leading, and we actually see some of that in
Ephesians chapter 5.
And some people go, well, it's neither one of those.
It's just simply saying that, hey, guess what?
There's going to be conflict in marriage.
Good luck, right?
So let's figure it out.
Okay.
The word desire, what's that word mean?
In the Hebrew, that word means a very strong emotion or feeling to have or do
something.
Something is not defined, okay?
The word is only used three places in all of Scripture.
It's used here.
It's used again in Genesis 4-7, and it's used in Song of Songs or Song of Solomon
chapter 7 verse 10.
Now, it is a word in the Hebrew where its placement and its context within a
passage is what defines something.
Make sense?
The word itself doesn't define what the desire is, the something, but how it's
used and its placement in the passages is what it says.
So you have this desire to have or do something, and it's contrasted with yet
he will rule over you, right?
It says yet.
So it's like this is what you're going to want, but this is going to happen
instead.
Now, that word rule means to exercise authority or be in charge over or be
appointed to do so.
Okay?
That's what the word rule means.
So let's read verse 16.
Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
So the grammatical structure of this is party A, woman, will have a strong
emotional feeling to do something to party B, who's the husband.
So you've got A, woman, B, husband.
Yet party B, the husband, will be appointed to exercise authority over
party A, the woman.
So it's not too difficult to go the something has to do with what party B
does, desires contrasted with rule.
Well, let's look at Genesis chapter 4 verse 7 and see how it's used.
This is a section that is right after God accepts Abel's offering but not
Cain's, and then Cain gets mad, and God says this in Genesis 4, 7.
If you do what is right, won't you be accepted.
But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
Now, the grammatical structure is almost identical to Genesis chapter 3
verse 16.
And when I say almost identical, it's that the verbs that are used are
exactly the same, but in Genesis 3, 16, they're in a future tense.
Here, they're in a present tense.
But that doesn't change the meaning of the words here.
So you have desire and you have rule.
The same exact words seen in Genesis 3, 16 contrasted the same here.
So party A, sin, has a strong emotional feeling to do something to party B,
Cain, but party B, Cain must exercise authority over party A, sin.
And again, the something that is desired has to do with what party B does.
Now, let's look at Song of Solomon chapter 7 verse 10.
I am my loves and his desire is for me.
Do you see that the grammatical structure is different?
B, Solomon has a strong emotion or feeling to have or do something to A, his wife.
Do I need to explain that?
Okay.
There's no contrast, though, in this one between desire being opposed to
something else, right?
We don't see that contrast.
And then, like I said, the context of the book makes it very clear.
This is a sexual desire.
He is physically wanting to have his wife or to be with his wife.
And so you go to the context of Song of Solomon is obviously this beautiful
relationship, physically, emotionally, mentally, the marriage night, all of it.
It's this beautiful picture of this desire between a man and a wife and how
they express that, right?
That's what Song of Solomon is all about.
But the context of the Cain and Abel story is will Cain do things according to
God's way or not?
That is the question.
And we know that Cain did not.
Instead, he went and he killed his brother Abel.
So what we see there is sin's desire was to rule over Cain, was to lead Cain,
was to get Cain to do what it wanted.
And then God said, but you must rule over it.
Don't let it tell you what to do.
You rule over it by doing what God wants you to do.
That's the idea.
Now, then we go look at the curse on the woman.
The question is the same.
Would she do things according to God's word and God's way or not?
And ultimately in the garden we saw that she did not.
Instead, she went against God's word that came through her husband because God
told Adam, don't eat of the tree.
And so we deduced that he shared it with his wife.
So she ate of the tree and then she gave to her husband.
And again, we're going to deal with his curse next time.
But Genesis chapter 3 and then Genesis chapter 4 and both of those places,
the context and the grammatical structure seems to tell us that party A,
which is woman or sin, their action was to exercise authority or rule over
party B, which was the husband or Cain.
And the wrong in that scenario was that party A led to something bad,
something that was against God's way.
And so the woman led her husband to disobey God as she was doing.
We're going to talk about him doing it with eyes wide open a little bit.
But then in Genesis 4, it's sin led, directed Cain to murder his brother
instead of doing what was right.
So we could dismiss Genesis 3, 16 being about sexual desire simply based upon
parallel usage and grammatical structure.
And all of that is biblical nerd stuff to come to this conclusion.
We can understand desire is a strong emotion or feeling to have or do
authority or to exercise authority, rulership over her husband the same way
Eve did at the tree.
She listened to the serpent, which was not God's word, contrary to God's word.
She did the wrong thing and then she gave her husband and then he did it
following her lead and her curse.
Then from that point forward is she will want, long for, crave, desire that
same authority over her husband for all time.
Yet, God says, the husband will rule.
The husband will be in charge.
The husband will exercise authority.
The husband is appointed to do these things over his wife and the family.
Now, this has been, sometimes it is expressed by women, wives thinking or
expressing things like my husband is an idiot.
And if I was in charge, things would be way better.
You know?
Some wives think that.
That's the curse.
If I was in charge, it would be better.
If I was in charge, I would make the right decisions, you know?
Or it's just simply, I don't agree with his decision and so I don't want to do it.
Right?
Even though he's head of the family, head of the household, you know, this isn't
talking about, well, you can't have a discussion.
No.
It's a partnership, right?
Husband and wives communicate, talk, discuss.
But the idea is when it comes down to a final decision, that authority has been
given to the husband by God.
And yet, for all time, the woman's curse will be she'll wrangle against that
sometimes or a lot of times.
Now, Genesis 3 16, as a side note here, it's not, this isn't where male headship
in the family in the marital context comes from.
Like, right?
The idea that the husband is supposed to be head of the home, it wasn't invented
here in woman's curse because it was already established in the creation order.
Right?
Man was created first, then Eve.
And so that was the authority structure, God, man, wife, and then they would rule
over creation.
But in that context, in the perfection of Eden, in the presence of God, in the
absence of sin, there was no conflict, no selfishness, no difficulty of any kind
in Eve yielding to that.
It wasn't hard for her to do so.
My husband is the head of the house.
That's how it is.
Cool.
I'm completely content.
I have no issue with that.
The curse, however, brought issue with that.
And so now even the relationship with her husband would be increasingly difficult,
just like the call to be able to carry birth and raise children would be
increasingly an increased difficulty and pain and all of that.
Now, so the woman would now have a craving, a longing, a desire to be in charge
over her husband who was called to be the spiritual and the practical leader in
the household.
And yet she wasn't given that authority.
And in that moment, marriage counseling was invented.
Okay?
But don't think guys are off the hook here.
We're again going to deal with that next time.
I've said that like five times already.
But nothing here in this curse is implying that a husband is allowed to be
forcefully dominant, abusive, controlling, or anything like that.
That is a perversion of the authority God gave to men.
And that is again another result of the fall, that husbands in the garden were
perfect.
But because of the fall, not so much anymore.
So this is simply establishing that due to her sin, a woman would no longer
enjoy that peaceful, blissful, content relationship of authority in her
marriage.
Instead, it would be a struggle.
It would be a contest.
It would be a fight against the God-appointed authority of her husband.
And that struggle would bring discord and hurt into her life in what was
supposed to be this beautiful, wonderful, sin-free relationship.
That's what this is talking about here.
Now, what's interesting is Paul the apostle appeals to this same
interpretation when he's writing his letter to Timothy.
In 1 Timothy chapter 2, he's talking about authority in the church.
And in 1 Timothy 3, he actually gets into these are the qualifications of
elders.
These are the qualifications of deacons and deaconesses.
And it is in that section right there where he establishes that elders,
overseers of the church, are to be males only.
That's where he establishes that.
But this is what he says in 1 Timothy 2, 12.
He says, I do not allow a woman to teach her to have authority over a man.
Instead, she is to remain quiet.
And you're going, what does that have to do with the curse and the marriage
relationship and everything?
What you see here in the New Testament is that authority structure that God
set up originally that was flipped upside down, that he forced back into
place through the curse, that same authority structure that takes place in
a Christian home, that same authority structure takes place in God's house.
That's what it was setting up here.
And so Paul is about to teach spiritual authority and leadership in the
church here in 1 Timothy 2 and 3.
And when he says, I don't allow a woman to teach, it's simply the idea of
authoritative defining of doctrine.
It's the thing that elders are called to guard in Titus 1, verse 9.
That the male overseers, the male leadership of the church, they're the
ones that are called to authoritatively define the doctrine, the beliefs of
the church, right?
Now, that's not to say that a woman can't ever teach anything in any
regard.
It's not even saying specifically that a woman can't teach if men are
present.
What it's saying is just that in God's house, he appealed back to the same
creation order and said, just I haven't called women to authoritatively
define doctrine.
That is for the elders only.
But then look next at what he bases that on.
He says in verse 13, for Adam was formed first, then Eve, creation order.
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.
So the interpretation that this is she's going to want to rule over her
husband, yet he's going to rule over her.
This is what Paul is appealing to when he's saying the men are the elders in
the church.
I just, God didn't call the women to that, right?
Now, if we go back to Genesis 3 16 and we go, no, it was the woman wanted to
have sexual control over her husband.
And then you go to 1 Timothy 2 and you go, that doesn't make any sense.
Right?
The women are going to want to have sexual control over the church.
That's not what he's talking about, right?
So that's how we come to that interpretation in Genesis 3 16 because it's
used in the New Testament referring to authority and rulership.
And so he says the first reason is the creation order and was created first.
So for that reason, he has authority in God's house just the way he has in his
family.
The second reason is as the woman was deceived.
And what that's referring to is that she believed that which was contrary to
God's word could be true.
The servant said, did God really say that?
He didn't say that.
As a matter of fact, God is wrong and she went, huh.
And then so just the way God set up his church is he goes, okay, I'm just the
ladies aren't going to be the one establishing authoritative doctrine.
That's going to be the men.
Now, like I said, in the context of God's house interpreting what God has said
and wants for his family, that's why the church operates the way it does.
Males still hold the place of head of household in their own homes.
They're still called to leadership within God's house.
And then of course, Paul goes on to give detailed qualifications.
Why?
Because just because you are male does not mean you're automatically
eldership in the church.
This is not saying that guys have authority to walk around here Sunday
morning, woman, do this, and blah, blah, blah.
You do that, you'll probably get punched, okay?
Don't do that, right?
I might tackle you and go, what are you doing, you numbskull, right?
It's like, no, that's not what it's saying, okay?
It doesn't mean all men have authority over all women.
But going back to the curse, it's, hey, in the context of this union
and this partnership, in the context of fulfilling this call to be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth, in the context of woman, your part in that
plan, because you upset the structure at the tree, then I'm going to make it
what it was supposed to be, but now it's going to be so much harder.
It's going to be so much more difficult.
It's going to be so much more painful both physically and emotionally.
And from the curse forward, the very center of a woman's existence was
impacted by sin and judgment.
Her part in that calling was impacted.
Her part in the marriage relationship was impacted.
It was all just messed up with sin.
But even in that, as we saw with the serpent, God's grace was present.
And this is the grace in God's curse on woman, is that the sense of
dissatisfaction, the sense of disease, not disease, dis-ease in what is
supposed to be the most joyful, rewarding, blessed areas of your life,
your marriage relationship, your motherhood, the dissatisfaction you have
there, the frustration you have there, all that stuff, it was meant to be
a reminder that the bliss, the perfect relationship of perfect peace, it's
no longer a woman's circumstance in this world.
The things that she was given the highest priority to do, not the only
thing, again, just the highest priority.
I think it's the highest calling to be a part of that for a woman and also
the highest calling for man, again, we'll talk about that next time.
It was no longer going to be easy.
It was no longer going to be without difficulty and without struggle.
But that struggle then reminds you, one, that's what we lost, right?
But two, these punishments are God's graces because when you're in that
situation where your marriage doesn't give you everything you want, right,
when your husband isn't the perfect man that you wanted and you're frustrated,
when mothering is filled with pain from pregnancy to birth to raising that
kid, right, it's like, ah!
Nothing completely satisfies.
All of that is God's grace.
Why?
Because it drives you into the arms of God.
It drives you into His presence.
The willing soul that is in all of that will truly find satisfaction, will
truly find joy, will truly find peace in God's arms.
And ladies, that's why God allows this to happen.
And you're like, well, that's, I don't like that.
Yeah, it is terrible.
The effects of sin are terrible.
But because she strayed from God's word, God's created a situation that's
going to drive you right back to Him because that is what we need, both man
and woman, God's presence to be in His arms.
And so because Jesus came and became a curse for us, that through faith in Him
we would find salvation, ladies, you're going to find here on earth some of the
peace and the joy and the contentment that was meant for you in the garden in
Christ.
In Christ, you're going to find the enablement to live the way that God
created you to live.
Not perfectly, that time's going to come in the future.
But ladies, in the fallen state we were like, I cannot yield to my husband's
leadership.
In Christ, you can.
But Lord, did it?
God's going to deal with him, deal with your part.
Again, this doesn't mean subject yourself to like, oh, well, I'm afraid for my
life.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
In the general sense of when you have that itch, that itch to resist, to argue,
to stand against, to cut him down in public, to whatever, when you have that
itch to look at motherhood as, oh, that's a waste of time, that's all that's going
to do is limit my life.
And when you have that itch and you want to scratch it, Christ is the one who's
going to allow you to go, no, that's not how it's supposed to be.
That I can follow my husband's leadership.
That I can and do and should and will look at motherhood as the greatest
opportunity that I have to be a part of God's original call.
That even if you're in the place where the effects of sin are causing you to not
be able to have children, to still look at it as this beautiful thing God created
and pray for and support other women who are able to do that, but to not disdain
what God has created.
Even though you can't live it perfectly, you can live it possibly because the God
of the universe dwells in you through salvation.
And so all you have to do is call out to your Savior and ask for grace and ask
for mercy, to see things as God does.
And when you do that you'll be blessed.
It's going to be hard, but it'll be possible.
And that's what we gain in Christ now and it'll be all gone, the sin and everything
when we get to heaven, amen.
Let's pray.
Father, we love you so much.
I pray, God, that as your Spirit has been in this place today that you've spoken
to all of us.
Lord, I pray for those who are mothers and have experienced the pain, the emotional
pain, the physical pain, God, that you would just speak into their hearts.
Remind them that all of that is just a reminder that sin exists, that the fall
happened, and that they would be driven into your arms because you are the hope,
you are the Savior.
That God, when they feel like they can't do whatever it is here in this world as a
wife or as a mother, God, that they would experience them being able to do it
through the power of your Spirit.
God, that they would find that the more they cling to you and your word, sin will
stay far away.
But they would also remember that as they stray from your word, sin is ready to
destroy.
God, I pray for women that are here that maybe can't have children, Lord, and that
has its own set of emotional pain.
God, I pray that you would bring comfort into their lives.
Lord, of course, if it is your will to do a miracle and reverse some things, God,
you've done that before.
But Lord, that every woman that is in that position would understand that you are
not punishing them, that this isn't because you are mad at them or that they've
done this or that wrong.
It is an effect of sin.
And Lord, again, may that drive them into your arms.
Lord, those that have lost children and they have a unique set of pain, emotional
and physical, Lord, that you bring comfort into their lives, that they would
find peace in you, Jesus.
And if there's any lady in here today, Lord, that doesn't know you, and they have
yet to find that peace, that contentment, that joy in the midst of all these
pains, Lord, I just pray right now that they would call out to you and say, God,
I'm hurting.
And I believe you know I'm hurting.
And I ask you, God, to come into my life because I know the hurt is a result of
sin in this world.
Forgive me of my sin, all of it.
Help me, Lord, to find joy in this world, in who I am and who you created me to
be.
Lord, I pray, God, that you would just set me free from the control of sin, that
you would give me the authority over sin to say no.
Thank you for loving me, Jesus.
And God, I just pray for all the women in this room that are married that you
would work in their hearts as well, Lord, as they experience the effects of the
fall every day, that again, Lord, they would run into your arms to be able to do
what they cannot do on their own, to experience some of the joy of what that
perfect relationship was meant to be and that, God, that they would all live in
that hope of what will be when we get to heaven with you.
Lord, bless the women.
Bless the women of our church.
Bless the women that don't know you, God, that they would come to know you.
Bless the moms.
Bless the single women.
Lord, we pray for single parents that they would find the help and support they
need from the very place that they should be able to get at the church.
Lord, you heal.
Do a mighty work.
We thank you and we love you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.