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Monday, November 28, 2011

Far reaching affects

In Gen. 3:14-24 is recorded the curse and punishment of Adam and Eve sins. Now there is a lot of material here! We will not look at it all, nor will try to go over the prophetic meanings. We will start with a question from verse 13, God speaking, "What is this you have done?". Yes, I know this was said to Eve. Guys when we do something...is this not a valid question for God to ask us also. Remember I said I had to wait till my dad came home? You know we did not have cell phone back then, nor were you able to call work for personal reasons...Dad would see me there in the corner...and I still can hear him say, "What did you do this time." Now if I was smart I would tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Not always the case, excuses...You see after he talked to me my dad would go and talk to mom. Then he would get the rest of the story. Well if the 2 stories we in line with each other, it was better for me(hind sight), if not we had more to deal with. Let's think about that for a minute; how many times when we confess our sins do we not tell the "whole story"... we make light of something...excuses... Can you picture God shaking his heads, you see He knows the rest of the story. Don't try to make light of your wrongs to God.
Now as we move down our text we see God pronouncing "Judgement" on the three. You see the disobedience of eating the "apple" came with a cost, telling or convincing someone to do something wrong...comes with a cost. So God tell them the first part of the cost. One for the serpent, one for Eve (women) and one for Adam (Man). Let's just deal with the man and the women. For women verse 16, "I will greatly multiply your pain in child birth. In pain you will bring forth children yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." For the man verse 17-18, "Cursed is the ground because of you, in toil you will eat of it all of your life. "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; for you are dust, And to dust you shall return." Now these things are still in place today. There are pain, toil, sweat, issues of authority and physical death (Gen.2:17). But also look what else happens. We have God providing skins for clothes, a few devotional in it's self, and God sent them out of the garden of Eden. Not only did He send them out, He also made provisions that man would not be able come back by himself.
What we must recognize is that there is always a price to sin. That sin affects more than you and God. In our verses above we can see that Adams and Eves sin even affect us today. Our sins affect our spouse, our children, our friends, our co-workers, our community...and our sins have far reaching affects into the future. This is a hard concept to grasp, how can it be? Think about it, if you are older and have children, do they not do the same or similar wrongful deeds. As a dad I can see the struggles my boys have, for the most part they are the same ones I struggled with. ( Look at the verse at the end).
One commits murder it affects God, the one murdered, his family, his children, his friends, the community... A married man commits adultery with his eyes, looking, it affects his relationship with his wife...even his relationship with his children... A young man does the same thing it reaches into the future to affect his marriage. Think about it, sin has far reaching affects. Hopefully seeing this reality of sin will give us all a push to bring them(sins) to God. Not only for forgiveness, but repentance; the turning away from sin. You see we need God's forgiveness, through Jesus Christ, but we also need His strength to help us not to sin. To break the bonds of sin that presses on us, that one sin or sins that just keeps popping up. The one's that are hard to stop, even when we are trying hard not to do them. We need the help of our Lord.
Exodus 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."