Look at one verse of scripture
tonight, verse 16, chapter 3. Now read it in conjunction with
verse 15. Our Lord speaking to the serpent
said, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy
seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman, he said, I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou
shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank
you for your word that clearly sets forth our condition in nature,
how we are ruined and unclean and undone. as we are born into
this world, where your word says we come forth from the womb as
soon as we are born, speaking lies, that we were conceived
in iniquity, that as we grow and mature, we drink iniquity
like water. We're called by all sorts of
adjectives in scripture, lame, impotent, halt, dead, weak, frail,
sinner, ruined, unclean, maggot and worm. We know that you tell
us the truth about us. We thank you for that. And we
thank you for the spiritual awakening to see that to be the case and
causing us to cry out for mercy and for grace and for help from
thee. Father, we ask tonight as we
look at this portion of scripture that you might be pleased to
open our eyes and our hearts to receive that which you have
for us. Pray for those of our company who are sick. Pray for
Brother Wayne, Brother Robert, for Peggy Lambert, and for Ethel
Conley. Also remember Joyce Dugan. Father,
also we would ask your help for Brother Crabtree as he faces
yet another trial in his life. We know that trials come to your
children by appointment, and some of your children are tried
to a greater degree than others. But regardless of the trial,
regardless, the intent is always the same to bring us to the feet
of Christ. Father, make it so in every one of our lives that
we might find Him, camp at His feet, and hear from Him, hear
His voice through His word. Help us, Lord, now to worship
You in spirit and in truth. We pray in the blessed name of
Jesus Christ. Amen. Now before us in this verse,
And that which follows for Adam is the pronouncement of the curse
placed upon mankind and the universe in which mankind abides. Adam is sin, we have seen that.
And in doing so, he has plunged all his progeny into utter ruin.
Humanity is doomed to be naturally born with enmity against God
and abounding in sin. And because Eve fell when Adam
sinned, being the other half of humanity, she also falls under
the curse that has been relegated to all humanity. And of this
curse there is no natural remedy, no carnal remedy. So man in nature,
as he is born into this world, cannot of himself recover from
his ruined condition. doomed, dead, damned, and dying
is the description of all that are born of Adam, seed after
his own kind. And of them there is none that
seek after God. They are all gone astray. They
are all together become filthy. There is none good, none that
doeth good, no, not one. There is none righteous, no,
not one. Note well that these curses placed on the woman fall
fast on the heels of the wondrous promise of the Redeemer, the
seed of woman, who will bruise the serpent's head and be wounded
in his heel in the process. In effect, at least chronologically,
before the curse is pronounced, the promise of the remedy is
already in place. Before he pronounces the curse
upon Eve and then next time we meet upon Adam, The remedy is
already in place. The seed of woman's going to
bruise the serpent's head. Before Adam's sin, there was
already the remedy. He was the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, according to Revelation 13 in verse eight. The Lord God here first addresses
the woman and pronounced the curse that she must endure for
her sin. Now this verse has been abused
throughout history by religion, even to the point of offering
no help to women as they give birth. I recently read of a cult
out west that gave the head woman in their organization instructions
to make childbirth the most miserable experience that was possible
as if it was incumbent upon that woman to assure that this curse
was fulfilled. because they believe that's what
this curse said. And this is nothing new among
men. Sinful, carnal men and women often take it upon themselves
that which only belongs to God, especially if it involves inflicting
pain on someone else. This was a kind of torture that
this woman went through in this cult, complete with rehearsing
this verse over and over again, mocking and deriding the woman
in labor to make her suffer all the more. They use this verse
to bludgeon the woman as it's often used today. The misuse
of this verse of scripture has been and is misused by many to
disallow and dismiss women seeking to assign blame to Eve for Adam's
transgression. Adam did it from the start. The
Greek philosophers believed that women were the trouble. Women
were the trouble. They were always the trouble. They were what caused man's fall.
Women did not cause man's fall. Adam fell because he chose to
obey or disobey God and rebel against Him. He was deceived. Is this verse speaking of birth
pains? This is what we need to understand.
Can any word in this curse be translated to mean travail? or
pains incurred by giving birth. Is this verse about the birth
process at all? The answer is no. The answer
is no. Travail in the scripture is both
natural and physical and also typical and symbolic. It would
be virtually impossible for a woman's body to undergo to the birth
of a child without pain. You know that, don't you women?
You know that to be a fact. I've been there, I've seen that,
and it hurt me to see the pain that my wife endured to produce
our children. Though my pain was sympathetic,
her pain was real and palpable. But typically and symbolically,
the travail of a woman pictures the pain and anguish of our Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary, when in agonies and blood, his soul
was made an offering for sin. It is said of that experience,
he shall see of the travail, that is the child born, of the
travail, the product of the travail, he shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge or skill shall
my righteous servant justify many, For he shall bear their
iniquities. The curse laid upon Eve is not
the pain of travail. If there is pain, it is the emotional
pain, here referred to as sorrow. And if you look at that up in
the Hebrew language, pain is way down the line in the line
of definitions. The first definition is the pain
of sorrow. The pain of sorrow. Our Lord
said you're going to have sorrow in conception, not in birth. but in conception. This sorrow is applied to conception. In a world that is halfway right
in this mind, the knowledge of pregnancy is a joyous occasion.
It's a joyous occasion. We know that. But here it's said to be a sorrowful
thing. It's said to be a sorrowful thing. The sorrow that is assigned
to the conception is the knowledge and this is for one who has a
spiritual understanding, is the knowledge that as sweet, as sweet
and as beautiful as the prospect of bringing a child into the
world is, there is a two-fold sorrow that comes with it. First is the sorrow that you're
giving birth to a dying thing. You're giving birth to a dying
thing. A child is born to die. His days are numbered. His months
are with God. Every breath is counted as even
the hairs upon his head. And every heartbeat belongs to
the Lord. A child is born to die. And every
mother knows that even when she gives birth to a child, that
child has an end to his life. She just hopes that she dies
before the child does, so she don't have to see. But that's
the sorrow that attends conception. Secondly, the child born, if
you understand the scripture, is a sinner. It's a sinner, born
in sin, conceived in iniquity. And the child born into this
world, as much as we love them and cherish them, we love them
to death, and would easily die for them, That child is, what
that child is, is worthy of death. It's worthy of death. As a doomed
son or daughter of Adam without any possibility of salvation
unless the Lord God visits the child in grace and in mercy. That's just the fact. So our
conception is attended with sorrow. And this is real sorrow. I can
remember the prayer that issued from my lips when my children
were born. As I held them the first time in my arms, I said
silently in my heart, O Lord, save them for the glory of thy
name's name. Save them. All children are born
to die because this is the payment God is due for sin. And thus, even in this, we see
the glory. We see the glory assigned to
the seed of woman. Her seed, the seed of woman was
born to die. He came to this world to die. He was a child born and a son
given to death. That's what he was. In the place
of his room and his people, he died. What did he do in doing
that? He redeemed them from the curse of the law. Also part of that curse aside
to the woman is that her desire would be to her husband. That
doesn't sound bad. This would hardly be considered
to be a curse where love existed. But the actual reading of this
is that the desire of the woman would be subject to the husband's
approval, or he was the deciding factor as to her desire's fulfillment. This is further revealed in the
next phrase, and he shall rule over her. You can just feel the
resistance in your flesh, can't you? Come on now. You can just
feel the resistance in your flesh. There is scarcely a verse in
all of scripture that has been more wrongly applied because
men and women err not knowing the scriptures nor the power
of God. This call, this curse, remember, falls under that period
of time called the old covenants. the old covenant, and those who
seek to apply it to the realm of the Spirit have and will abuse
it till the end of time. You try to apply this as it's
written here, not understanding that there's spiritual truth
in it. you miss it all together. Under the new covenant, the eternal
covenant of grace, the first thing we realize is that Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us. Secondly, these words to Eve are revealed in an entirely
different light, the light of Christ, the light of the liberty
in which Christ has made us free from the law of sin and death.
In the new covenant, the entire relationship of a husband and
wife has to do with something else altogether than a curse.
Because the curse has been removed. It has to do with a picture.
It is a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church
wherein the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for her. And the wife is to be in submission
to her husband as the church is in submission to Christ. Your
marriage is not about you. If you're a child of God, your
marriage is not about you. It's about Christ and His church.
It each plays a part. The husband plays a part in that
and so does the wife. These are both voluntary acts
under the new covenant. Here it was a command. This is
what's going to happen to you. You're going to have sorrow in
conception. You're going to submit to your
husband. He's going to have rule over
you. That's the language of the old covenant. In fact, that rule
under the old covenant was the wife If she wanted something,
she had to see if it was all right to want it. She had to
ask her husband if it was all right to want it. That's not
the case under the new covenant. The husband is not to make his
wife obey her command because this is an individual command
to the wife to submit yourself to the husband. And the wife
is not supposed to make the husband obey his command. Many times
I've sat at house with a husband and a wife who are having a problem
and the wife would say, tell him he's supposed to love me.
That's not your business. Not your business to tell your
husband he's supposed to love you. God done told him, you don't
have to remind him and it ain't your business to make him do
it. God has commanded him to love you as Christ loved the
church and that's a big tall order. God has commanded you,
the woman, to be in submission to their husband, but he's not
commanded the husband to see that you do that. That's the
problem. I've seen many times where husbands
say, look, I'm the head of the household. I'm the man of the
house. If you have to say that, you
ain't. Just figure on that. I learned that a long time ago
in my own business. One of the smartest men I knew told me if
you ever have to say you're the boss of somebody, you ain't the
boss of nobody. That's just a fact. They each stand before the Lord
They each stand before the Lord, and obedience is due him as to
what they have individually been commanded to do. That's what
it is. And they will do what they are
admonished to do, because the love of God has been shed abroad
in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which was given them. For the
believer, the commands of the Lord are not grievous to be borne.
Scripture declares that in 1 John 3, 5. It says, for this is the
love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments
are not grievous. It's not grievous for a woman
who is a child of God to submit herself to her husband. It's
not grievous for a husband who is a child of God to love his
wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. It's
not a grievous thing. Now under the old covenant it
was punishable but you see the curse has been removed. He was made a curse for us. He
has redeemed us from the curse of the law. So for the believing
woman, the sorrow of the fact that she has given birth to a
dying child is also attended, excuse me, with the hope that
God will save them. And though they will die physically,
their hope is that they may live eternally in the presence of
the thrice holy God, the sovereign God of grace. I can say without
hesitation that my wife and I were bursting with joy when our kids
were born. But that joy was not to be compared
to the effulgent happiness when your child tells you that the
Lord has saved them. That's joy. That's joy unspeakable
and full of glory. For the believing wife, her submission
to her husband is actually a response to the knowledge of what Christ
has done for the church. that's what it's all about you
women know what Christ did for his church and for the husband
to love his wife you men know what Christ did for his wife
for his bride under the law according to Romans chapter 7 her husband
was a good husband and she was a bad wife but her husband was
very strict Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou
shalt not. That was all he ever said. Came home from work every
day. There was his wife, trembling
in fear because she didn't know what was going to catch her in
the next thing. He takes and puts on his white gloves and
starts going over the windowsills and she's just trembling because
she might not have dusted there good enough. He treats her honorably,
but not lovingly. Not lovingly because there's
no love and grace in the law. There's no love and grace in
that old husband. None whatsoever. But didn't he? He died. He was
put to death on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and now
you're married to Christ. You're his bride and he doesn't
come home with a white glove inspection. He's made everything
perfectly clean already. He did the housework. And he
tells you to put on your finest dress and lay down and relax
on the lounge. Because everything is taken care of. You don't have
to do anything. You're hungry, I'll feed you.
You're hungry, I'll be your food. You're hungry, I'll be your water
of life. You're sad, I came to heal the
broken hearted. This is your new husband. Husbands,
this is what you do for your wife. You love her like Christ
loved her. You love her. So for the believing
wife, how hard is it to rest in absolute love for your husband,
or the absolute love of your husband? How hard is that? You see, the children of God
are the bride of Christ. And when a man rules over his
wife, he doesn't rule over her with an iron fist. He rules over
her as described in the Psalm of Solomon. The love over her
is a banner of love. A banner of love. He sees her
in a unique way. How does Christ see us? I know
what we see. It ain't much. It ain't much. Our resume don't shine as human
beings. How does Christ see us? Without
spot of blemish. You can't tell me anything bad
about this woman. I won't believe it. And that's just the truth.
And I know it. I know it. I've lived with her
for 48 years. I know it. I don't see anything
wrong with it. Why? Is there nothing wrong with
it? Ask her. She'll probably say, yeah, there's
pretty wrong with me. I don't see anything. Why? Because
I love her. Love covereth the multitude of
sin, saith the scripture. Her righteousness shines forth
as the sun. Solomon said to his wife, thou
art fair, my love. There is no spot in the curse. It's turned to a blessing. The
curse is turned to a blessing. Over in Nehemiah chapter 13 in
verse two, it says this, because they met not with the children
of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them,
that he should curse them, howbeit our Lord turned the curse into
a blessing. Turned the curse into a blessing. Then in Revelation 22, verse
three, says this, and there shall be no more curse. No more curse. But the throne of God and the
Lamb shall be in him, and his servants shall serve him. There
shall be no more curse. Eve was cursed. This was her
curse laid upon her, clear and plain. I'll have charred thy
conception. left sorrow in that conception.
Our husband shall rule over them. That curse has been turned to
a blessing. The blessing of knowing about Christ and His Church.
What a glorious thing. Father, bless this to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.