This transcript has been auto-generated 

OK, what we have noted last time is that God has condemned Satan and given a prophecy of how his total defeat will occur. What he does next is speak to the woman.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

(Gen 3:16) 

Today when we think of conception, we think of a moment 9 months prior to the arrival of a child. At that time conception referred to the whole 9-month period right up to and including the arrival of the child. That’s the point the woman is going to be drawn to her husband (you know what I’m talking about folks) but the consequence of that physical union is now going to result in an end result which includes great joy and great pain, and the pain is going to be experienced in childbirth. 

There’s more, God says “your desire is going to be towards your husband”.  If the only result of intimacy was pain, we would be much less likely to join together, so God increases the desire for physically intimacy between a man and a woman. Which has said some to say if men had children there would only be one child per family. 

Finally, the Lord speaks to the man

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 

(Gen 3:17-18) 

In order to appreciate this verse, you need to look at it in in the immediate context. Satan represented by the serpent/snake was cursed. Man, himself was not cursed the ground was cursed. Adam submitted himself to his wife when he should have submitted himself to God. The punishment that he would experience is being put under submission to the ground. Prior to the fall the earth had spontaneously yielded fruit and food, now it yields thorns and thistles. Whereas once the ground cooperated with humankind, now it will resist us. 

In Romans chapter 8 Paul says, “the whole creation is now in futility and groans to be redeemed”, a reference to this very passage. The creation begins to experience degeneration and decay just like that rusty old car in the sea I spoke of a few podcast ago. Before the fall man tended the garden, the work was done with relative ease. Now the man would have to gain his food by painful toil and by the sweat of his brow. There's a second result of Adam fall from grace, not only will he now work by the sweat of his brow verse 19 tells us this (OHP 10) 

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

(Gen 3: 19) 

The other consequence of the fall is death. The wages of sin are indeed death. We are made from dust, we came from the ground, and we he will return to the ground. So much for the promise offered by Satan of being God-like. They thought they were going to end up God deity and they ended up dust. That’s it for this time. Next time I’ll sum this all up and hopefully draw a conclusion for us of just how profound the fall of man has been.