Tony Evans - Encountering God's Provision
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This sermon explores two main stories: first, 1 Kings 17:8-16, where God provides for Elijah and a widow through a miraculous, never-ending supply of flour and oil. The preacher emphasizes that God is our only true source, and provision often follows obedience and surrender. Second, the sermon delves into Genesis 3 and the "many deaths" (spiritual, emotional, relational, economic, physical) caused by sin, concluding with the hope of reversal and reigning in life through Jesus Christ, the "last Adam."
God as Your Only Source
Today I want you to experience an encounter with God and His provision. First Kings chapter 17, beginning in verse 8: this is what we read. "Then the word of the Lord came to him, that is Elijah, saying, 'Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.' So he arose and he went to Zarephath."
"When he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and said, 'Please get me a little water in a jar that I might drink.' As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, 'Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.' But she said, 'As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar.'"
"'Behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.' Then Elijah said to her, 'Do not fear. Go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterwards you may make one for yourself and for your son.'"
"'For thus says the Lord God of Israel: "The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth."' So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah."
Here is one of the great stories in scripture of God's provision. First of all, why does God allow us to be in circumstances where it looks like He is not providing? I am certain that there are plenty of stories here where you have felt like God has let you down, left you down by not coming through when you wanted to, when you needed Him to, when you asked Him to, when you desired Him to.
It looks like when you're in a need, He's taking His time and He has not satisfied the need for provision. There are a number of reasons why God allows His people to be in circumstances where provision is lacking. In this particular chapter, it was because of the sin of idolatry. God had made it clear that when you go after other gods, you let those other gods take care of you.
When you abandon Me (Deuteronomy 11:16-17), if you leave Me for other gods, then I will close up the heavens and there will be no rain. For an agricultural environment, rain was critical. In other words, don't call on My blessing when you're worshiping another god; let the competition take care of you. So when we abandon God through our sin and our idolatry, we walk away from the Provider.
So one of the reasons why provision is absent is that we have moved away from the Provider through our sin, through our idolatry. Remember, an idol is any noun—person, place, thing, or thought—that you go to and appeal to as your source. He says that the reason why Israel right now was dried up and there was a drought is because they had abandoned God for the idols of Baal.
So one reason why provision may be lacking is God has been abandoned, which means you are now left to your own resources to provide for yourself because He's no longer appealed to, respected, and followed as your Jehovah Jireh. That's one reason, but that's not the only reason. Another reason why God allows lack of provision in our lives in a multiplicity of areas of our lives is because He is trying us, testing us.
Deuteronomy 8:1-3, God says, "I let you get hungry. I let your food get low so that I might test your heart." In addition to that kind of test, He goes on in that same passage and says, "And I did it to humble you." In other words, to get rid of some of your self-sufficiency. One of the reasons God will allow lack—emotional lack, physical lack, financial lack, career lack—is to strike a death blow at our independence.
God hates pride, and He hates when you feel like you can make it without Him. To address independence from Him, He will allow your contacts not to come through, the promotion not to come through. He will allow, just when you thought you had a savings, for something else to break down and eat it up. He will allow lack to let you know that you are not self-sufficient.
That on your best day, on my best day, you and I are dependent. Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 8 and 9, he said, "We were undergoing a great deal of affliction. We were being overwhelmed to the point of death. We were going through a great deal of affliction to the point of death." God, why did you let Paul, who loved you, get that low where he didn't even think he could live anymore?
Then Paul says, "That we might learn to trust Him who raises the dead." He said He let us get that low to deepen what it means to trust God at a point we couldn't fix. So God will allow us to get into circumstances we can't fix, even when we're in His will, in order to take us to a deeper level of experience with Him and deepen our faith.
But see, if you don't know that, then you just get mad at God. If you don't know that, then you're just getting frustrated at your circumstances. So God does allow lack, and in the case of idolatry, even causes it. And so that's the situation here. We have a prophet who is in a sinful environment; the people have gone to idolatry.
Now we have a widow who can't eke out a living and only has enough flour for one more day. God tells Elijah, "Go to this woman, and she's going to feed you." Now she doesn't even have enough to feed herself, but you go to this woman and she's going to feed you. Stay with me here. If I could ever get this principle into our heads—I know you hear me say it a lot—I'm going to say it again today.
I'm going to say it a number of times today, because if you ever get it, your whole life changes. And the principle that you've heard a million times is: you only have one source. There it is. As simple as that sounds, it is life-transforming. You do not have multiple sources. Anything outside of God is a resource, not a source. It's merely a vehicle.
God tells Elijah to go to a widow. Okay, so He tells him to go to somebody who can't even take care of herself. He says, "I want you to go to Zarephath, which is in Sidon." Let me tell you about Zarephath. Zarephath was the Baal belt; it was the center of Baal worship. So it was just idolatry everywhere. So watch this: "I want you to go to a woman who can't take care of herself, 'cause she's down to her last meal, and I want you to find the woman in a bad location."
So God had to prepare Elijah for this command, and He prepares him back in verse 4. He says, "It shall be that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there." There's our word "provide" again. Wait a minute—God, You're going to tell the ravens to feed me? Now, why is that a big deal? 'Cause ravens are unclean birds.
The Jews were prohibited from eating ravens; they were unclean birds. And yet He says, "I'm going to tell the unclean bird (Deuteronomy 14:11-14) to take care of you." So let me tell you something about God: He can use evil to make provisions for His people. He can use the unclean to answer a prayer. God said you can't eat a raven; He didn't say I can't use one.
One of the things you need to know about God is that He trumps His rules. He's never inconsistent with Himself, but anything He created He can use to accomplish His purpose, even if it belongs to the devil. I'm going to throw a curveball to you right now, but God can use the devil to answer your prayers. That's how good God is.
So God knows you're going to need an encounter, which means He's going to have to create for you a situation. He's going to have to put you in a scenario to either deal with your idolatry or take you deeper in your faith. And that usually means it's a scenario you can't solve yourself, 'cause if you could solve it yourself, He knows you would go to that earthly solution rather than His heavenly intervention.
Until we understand that we only have one source—until we understand that God is your only source and He doesn't want any competitors—then you'll be bouncing from resource to resource, hoping this resource works out, maybe it's this resource, maybe it's that resource. You'll be jumping and doing hopscotch all over the place, hoping that maybe this is the resource. I'm trying to free you up: you only have one source.
So God commands Elijah, and He tells him, "Now I have a widow for you, and I want you to go, and I have commanded her to feed you." So He's already gone ahead of Elijah and set him up so he could get something to eat. So Elijah goes to Zarephath. So let me just pause there. He didn't just say, "Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord, isn't God good all the time? All the time God's good." No, he obeyed.
See, a lot of us want to see God's provision without our obedience. We want God to provide first, and then we might obey. No, he wouldn't see the provision until he did the obedience. So he goes to Zarephath—not a comfortable place to be; it was the Baal seat, the seat of idolatry—but he fulfills God's command. And he sees the widow; he tells the widow, "Give me some water and a piece of bread."
Stay with me now. Here's the widow's response in verse 12: "But she said..." Now let me tell you something right there. "But she said..." To put it in everyday English: let's get real. Come on, man, let's get real. She says, "I have no bread, only a handful of flour in a bowl and a little oil in a jar, and I am gathering a few sticks that I might go in, prepare for me and my son, that we may eat and die."
Often when God wants to do something for you, He will ask something from you first. That's why the prophet says, "Give to me first." Why, if you need something, would God ask you to give something that you yourself need? She needed her own food, because God wants to know whether you trust His word. This principle is over and over in scripture.
Proverbs 11:25 says, "He that waters will himself be watered." The Bible says over and over again (Deuteronomy 24:19). God responds to our response. Luke 6:38: "Give, and it will be given to you... pressed down, shaken together, running over." A lot of people love that verse who don't do anything with it. God will regularly require a response of faith in the very area of your own need.
I was at the gas station. It was on one of those cold days; it's freezing out there. There's this homeless gentleman, and he looked little, really sincerely homeless. I try to vet those things, 'cause there's a lot of games out there, too. So he said, "Please, sir, for a few dollars to get something to eat and drink, something hot to drink." And so I'm pumping gas while he's asking me this.
He says... I said to him, "Okay, it's real? You're not just talking because you want some drugs, you want some, you know?" So I went through that. He said, "Oh no, no, no." And then I have my little test I do. I said, "So you're willing for me to take you to get something to eat and not just give you money to eat?" 'Cause that way you can tell whether they're really into whether the issue is food or not.
So he said, "Oh yeah, you mean you can take me?" So I said, "Okay, I tell you what, I tell you what." After I pump gas—I use my credit card to pump gas—I look at my wallet, and there's a $100 bill. It's a $100 bill in my wallet. So I got to get change. So follow this now—true story. So I'm going to help the guy. I'm going to give him... I was going to give him $15. Looked like it was authentic, hungry; it's freezing out there.
So I go into the store at the gas station. I go, and I said, "Sir, would you give me... to get my receipt for the gas. I said, would you give me change for $100?" This never happened to me before. He pulls out his cash register, and he says, "I am so sorry. I don't have any change." I said, "You got to be kidding me. How you going to be a store and you don't have change?" He says, "I can't break a $100. I don't... I can't, you know. It's just the way things have been going; I don't have any change."
So now me and God, we got to have a little discussion. We got to talk about this. Now, God, is this You? Is this You? 'Cause I don't want to... I don't want to miss You, but also... So I'm debating. I walk back out; it's freezing outside. I walk back out, and I said, "Okay, God, it's obvious this is what You want me to do." And so I gave the guy the $100 bill, and I said, "I want you to use this for what you said you're going to use it for."
At first glance, he only saw one zero. He thought it was a $10, and then it dawned on him that there were two zeros, 'cause of the way he looked. He looked and turned away, said thanks, and then he looked again, and he did that. I said, "Can I pray for you?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, pray for me, pray for me all day. We can fast and pray today." I mean, he was serious in his... his pomposity? I mean, he was really expressing himself: "Yeah, pray for me."
So I prayed for him, you know, gave him a little witness. But the experience I got out of it was God allowed that thing to happen in the way 'cause He wanted me to do something more than I had originally intended. And what I am trying to say to us is God has a myriad of ways of creating encounters so that as we become vehicles of blessing, He feels more comfortable blessing.
That's what it means when the scripture says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." The only reason why it's more blessed is the bigger the conduit you become, the bigger container you're able to receive. And so the woman says... Or, Elijah says to her in verse 13, "Do not be afraid." Because when you're in a situation where you need God to provide, and then He's asking you to do something that you don't understand, you get scared.
He says, "Don't be afraid." He knew the woman was afraid to do what God said do, because it didn't make sense to do it. You need somebody in your life who's going to move you to God when you don't feel like going that way. You need somebody in your life who is spiritual enough to know what God is doing when you can't see it, even though they can show you from the Bible, 'cause it says it.
You need somebody in your life, and unfortunately today too many Christians limit themselves to their five senses. So they don't live in the spiritual; they only live in the five senses of the visible and the physical. So they never get to see what an encounter with God feels like. And it says when she let her faith overcome her feeling, proven by the fact that she did what the prophet said do...
It says that she did (verse 15) according to the word of Elijah, which was based on the word of God. And she and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah. In other words, God stretched it. He took the little that was there, and He stretched it until the natural could take over again until it rained again.
The point of this passage is for you to experience an encounter with God as your Provider. You only have one source; everything else is a resource. If you ever flip that and make that your modus operandi, how you roll, if you ever operate this way, you are free. 'Cause when a resource goes left on you, you can say, "Okay, God, what's next?" 'Cause You're my source.
You're the one taking care of me; You're the one providing for me; You're the one who's filling me. So my eyes are on You, not just what resources are operating today. Praise God for the bank, but it ain't my source. Praise God for the job, but it ain't my source. Praise God for the church, but if you fire me, you're not my source. So the idea is for God to be your source and let Him choose what resource He wants to use today.
May God help you individually, in your family, and us collectively to have one source so that we can encounter Him in the challenges of life when we see resources have run out. When your ability to provide some need in your life seems nonexistent, that's when God can demonstrate He is the great Provider. God can provide in some unusual ways, some unexpected ways, like He did with the prophet Elijah.
He did it first with an unclean bird, and then He took him to an unclean land where a lady who had very little of her own was used to provide for him and get a blessing in return. Don't always look for God's provision through the things that you know about or expect. I mean, after all, our God can hit a bullseye with a crooked stick.
He can come at things in ways that will shock you, surprise you, and sometimes even confuse you. God is your source. If you forget everything else I've said, remember: God is your source. And since He owns the world, He can pick any source to be your resource for your need at any time. Remember, the Bible is clear: "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches," not your ability, when you're in fellowship with Him.
The Many Deaths Caused by Sin
There are great academic discussions today about the causes of evil. You will hear people discuss all the reasons why evil exists and, of course, how it needs to be addressed. There have been many myths that have been established over history about where evil came from and why evil exists. Probably one of the most well-known Greek myths about the origin of evil is Pandora's Box.
Zeus, as the myth goes, was offended by two brothers. The god Zeus in Greek mythology was offended by two brothers, and in reaction to how they had offended the god, he created a woman. The myth says a very beautiful, beautiful woman. He took clay and made this lovely lady. And one of the two brothers that had offended Zeus married the lady.
Zeus then created this spectacular box as a wedding present for Pandora, the lady, and her new husband, one of the brothers who had offended him. There was only one instruction given to Pandora: "You are not to open this box. You can enjoy it, you can look at it, you can admire it, but under no circumstances do you take this key and open the box."
Well, as the myth goes, Pandora is passing this box every day, and she is dying to know what's in it. It's interesting that Zeus gave her a box and gave her a key and told her don't use it. But after she couldn't take it anymore, she took the key, she opened the box—thus "Pandora's Box"—and out of the box, as the myth goes, all manner of evil emerged.
Death, disease, destruction, illness, murder, envy—all manner of evil just erupted out of the box. When all of this evil came out, she just collapsed and wept because she had opened up a door for evil to enter the world. She closed the box. Her husband came in and saw her weeping because she had let loose evil in the world. Well, that's a myth; it's a Greek myth.
There is no Zeus; there were no two brothers before the first woman. But one thing is consistent, and that is that a human being unleashed something that expanded to the world. There is a cloud cover that covers the human race—a cloud cover of destruction. And we look at it, and we say, "How could he do that, she do that, or I do that?" Because there's this covering.
And God said, as we studied in chapter 2, verse 17, "Every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but the tree in the midst of the garden, do not eat it, or you're going to die. You're going to die." So the cloud cover that covers the human race can be summed up in one word, and that is the word "death." That's the cloud cover.
No matter what you try to do with it, it just covers stuff; it just keeps coming up. And He says, "You shall surely die." But as we've already explained, the word "death" in the Bible means separation. So forget the word "death" for a moment and just think of the word "separation." When a physical body dies, the soul leaves; the soul is separated from the body.
So the body can no longer function because the life has been separated; thus, death. So any illegitimate separation equals death. Okay? Remember that now for where we're going. Any illegitimate separation is the definition, biblically, of death. Death does not mean something ends; it means something has separated. So God says on the day you eat of this fruit, there will be a separation that will occur, and you will die.
Our purpose today is for you to understand the categories of death, because I can assure you that most here today, if not all, have died, are dying, or will soon be dead because of the definition of death. The Bible says over and over again that sin and death go together; the two cannot be separated. Ezekiel 18:4: "The soul that sins shall die." Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death." James 1:15: "Sin results in death."
So the two are always put together. You cannot sin and not die. Every time there is a sin, at that moment there is a death. But we're defining death as the Bible defines it: that a separation occurs. Now, with that in mind, let's see what happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned against God, and what happens to us when we do likewise.
Now, I know some are already saying, "Well, you know, I came here to be lifted up. I came to church to be lifted up." Verse 7 of Genesis chapter 3: they have eaten of the fruit under the tutelage of Satan. "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings."
"They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." He said on the day you eat, you will die. They did, but not physically; they didn't die for hundreds of years physically. What happened that day was they died spiritually because a separation occurred between them and God.
So the first kind of death is spiritual death, where your relationship with God is broken. It says when they ate, their eyes were opened. Well, wait a minute—they could already see. "All the trees of the garden you may freely eat." They could see the trees; they could see the fruit on the trees that they could eat from. They were not physically blind. What does He mean, "on the day they ate their eyes would be open"?
Their conscience would, for the first time, be exposed to evil. They would become—let's change the word—aware of something they were never aware of before, and that is the consequence of evil. They had not known evil till this point; they had only known good, because everything God made was good. But once they obeyed, the conscience—which is God's regulatory system of the soul—became aware of something it was never supposed to become aware of.
And I bet you all of us have had experiences in our lives where we look back and say, "I wish I didn't know that," 'cause now that I know it, it has messed me up. That's why we try to protect our children from seeing certain things or being exposed to certain things, so that they don't become aware of the evil for as long as we can.
God says, "I don't want you to eat because I don't want you to become aware. I do not want you to become a decipherer of good and evil." So if you stick with Me, your conscience will be protected from illegitimate exposure. But because they disobeyed God, they were exposed to something. And now, watch this: they are hiding from God.
It says that when they got exposed to evil, it affected their relationship with God. And they sewed fig leaves around themselves to cover themselves, because what was supposed to be natural now became immodest. That's why when you wear clothes, people describe you as modest or immodest, because the exposure is now viewed as something inappropriate.
And so they are now exposed, and they don't want God to see. They don't want God to see their exposure. And so they do what we all do when we're exposed: we cover up. It says they hid behind the trees. Oh, wait a minute—now, those are good trees. All the trees are good, 'cause everything God made was good. They sewed their loin cloths with leaves from the trees.
So they not only hide from God, they hide from God in His blessings. Wow. They use the goodness of God as their hiding place. How many folk here this morning are hiding in church? You're in the place that God created, but you're hidden, and you got your good-looking loin cloths on. He's hiding in the place of blessing. So God has to come looking for them because they have run from God.
Spiritual death is where there is an illegitimate separation from fellowship with the living God. And sin produces an illegitimate separation from God. And the Bible says this separation has affected and infected the whole human race. Ephesians chapter two: "You are dead in your trespasses and in your sins," talking about spiritual death—that this unsaved world walks around spiritually disconnected from God.
And the worst part about it is they don't even know it. You know why? 'Cause they're wearing fig leaves. Fig leaves of religion, fig leaves of trying to be a nice person, fig leaves of popularity. Fig leaves—they want to look like it's okay while they hide. Hide behind using the name God, hide behind being religious. They hide. But there's a spiritual disconnect because of disobedience to the revealed will of God.
We've all felt the sting of that. That's why 1 John 1 talks about our fellowship with God when we sin, because the fellowship is broken. He goes so far and says in 1 John 1, if you say you haven't sinned when I know you've sinned, just let me tell you, you and I are not on the same page. So unfortunately, even many of God's children are walking around disconnected from the true and living God, Lord, because we're hiding.
And so there is this spiritual separation. Notice their loin cloths are made of leaves. The leaves are on the trees, so they got to break the leaves off the trees in order to make the loin cloths, 'cause what was supposed to be fine is no longer fine anymore in light of their disobedience. In other words, they patch together a solution. "Let's do a little patchwork, 'cause if we can patch it up good enough, we can be covered."
Only problem is, an omniscient God knows. So God—they heard the sound of the Lord God (verse 8) walking in the garden. So that's probably Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Get it? The weather is nice, the trees are nice, and they hear the rustling of the Lord God in the garden.
The God that they used to walk with they now run from. They used to hang out with God; they would be kicking it with the Lord. And all of a sudden, then they're hiding because they're exposed. God asked three questions. Verse 9: "Adam, where are you at?" Verse 11: "Who told you you were naked?" Verse 13: "What is this you have done?"
Now, let me explain something. God doesn't ask questions so He can find out answers. He's not unaware. Okay, let's get that straight. He's not asking questions so you can give Him data that He does not know. The reason God asks questions is to promote self-examination. He wants to ask you the question so you can answer it for you. He wants to see whether you're going to tell yourself the truth.
Stay with me here, 'cause He already knows the truth. But what we want to do is, because we can't handle the truth... "What is this you have done?" "I made a mistake." Uh, no, I think it's a little bit deeper than that. We don't want to answer the question outright for what it is: sinful rebellion against the holy God, against His commandment and His instruction. And so there was a spiritual death.
"What is this you have done?" I know some of us are raising the question: "Wait, all this over some fruit? Me? Come on now. Come on now. We got to go through all this over some fruit?" No, no, no. If you get stuck on the fruit, you've missed it. Satan said to her in verse 5 of chapter 3: "If you eat the fruit, you can be like God, and you can know what God knows, and you can be your own god."
"You can be independent from God; you can be autonomous from God." So it wasn't just about fruit; it was about claiming my own deity. "I don't need to do what You say, God. I'm my own god. I don't have to answer to no god but You, looking at Him." So it was a god issue and a deity issue and a defining issue—no longer a dependent issue. And so there was spiritual death.
And whenever we have broken fellowship with God due to sin, even if we're a believer, we died. Yes, we're not communicating; we're hidden; we're not... God and us are not on the same page, no matter how well your fig leaves have been sewn together. Something else happened. He didn't just die spiritually; he died emotionally, and she died emotionally.
Notice what he says. Verse 10: "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." Wait a minute—he's now living a life of fear. Fear is an emotion. "Because I was naked," he's now living a life of shame. He's now knowing what it feels like to feel guilty for disobeying. So his emotions have been turned inside out, upside down, because there has been a death.
Why? Because there has been a separation from well-being. You know how it is when you're feeling well emotionally, and you're happy, and you're excited, and you're no longer nervous, and things are calm, and you are in control of your emotions, and they're not taking you every which way but loose, because you've been stable in your soul.
But when something happens, when you've broken a law, you know how it is to feel guilt and shame and to be terrified of what could happen. They're now living like this. And so they sew fig leaves. Some of us go to fig-leaf counselors, paying fig-leaf money to get fig-leaf relief. We go to entertainment to help us to forget this gnawing in our soul that something is awry.
We pop pills, Prozac and Valium, to help me to get over this disruption in my well-being. We connect with people because maybe they'll help me to forget. We get on drugs to give me some kind of ecstasy in the misery that I'm feeling. We're sewing fig leaves because the emotions have gone awry. We have died in our emotional well-being.
He says, "I was terrified of You—the God I used to kick it with in the cool of the day, in the pleasantness of the atmosphere. I am an emotional wreck, so I ran. I ran from God." Emotions went to shambles. Oh, but that's not the only kind of death, because remember, death is separation. Yeah, they spiritually died, which led to emotional death, and that led to relational death.
He says in verse 16, to the woman: "I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children." I'll talk about that in a moment. "Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Are there any men here married to a controlling wife? You better keep your hand down.
I know that because you used your role to entice him into eating the fruit. Talk about that in a moment. Because you used your position to entice him, "I am going to amplify your desire to be the head of this house." Wow. How do I know that's what He means by "desire"? Because of chapter 4, verse 7. He says to Cain, "If you will do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?"
"And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and it's"—here it is—"desire is for you, but you must master it." Desire is to control you. So when He uses it of the wife, He's using the same thing: your desire to control him is going to be magnified. So if you are married to a controlling woman, it is the curse at work.
If she wants to be your boss, if she wants you to submit to her, if she wants to—and she may have come from a controlling matriarchal household—but He says, "Because you wanted to take the role and take his role illegitimately, well, we're going to let you see where that gets you." And I'll tell you where it will get you: "He will rule over you."
So now the question is: Are there any women married to any domineering men? Any men who are verbally abusive or emotionally abusive or physically abusive, who say, "Well, you ain't my mama, and you ain't telling me what to do. I don't have to listen to your advice. I'm the king here; I'm in charge here. And as far as you're concerned, you're a cook, a bottle washer, and you have no say-so."
"You being a helpmate is totally rejected," because he reacts to your domineering, and you react to his rule. And what you have as a curse is the battle of the sexes in the home. So you wind up fighting for everything—ham and eggs—and you wind up fighting for everything. He likes it cold; she likes it hot. And she goes to bed early; you got to be late. Everything turns into World War III.
Why? Because a death has occurred in the relationship. There's a death, because death means separation. So now we want to separate. Now I want to get a divorce. Now want to do all that. "Why? We can't live together anymore." Why? Because there's a curse. It didn't start with an argument between the two of them; it started with rebellion against God. It just showed up in the argument at the home.
That's why when you sew the fig leaves of going on a vacation, you sew the fig leaves of buying an anniversary gift, you sew the fig leaves of, "Well, let's talk"... you sew the fig leaves. We're trying—we're trying to—we're trying to deal with this thing when all you're sewing is fruit, not root. He says—notice what He says: "I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth"—still talking about relationships—"in pain you will bring forth your children."
One lady was in labor pain. She was starting to moan a little bit. Okay, now the contractions are getting closer together; they're getting closer together, so she's feeling it more. And then, when it just got unbearable, she screamed out, "I hate you, Eve!" Every time a woman feels labor pains, it is the reminder of rebellion against God and the pain it brings.
But He says not only will you have labor in childbirth, but you will bring them forth in pain. You will have problems in child-rearing. And how many of us have had the pain of raising a child that rebels, starting it too terrible twos, or living with a teenager who rebels? But He talks about the pain of relationship, that this thing was going to manifest itself and spin out in all directions that would be deaths of relationships.
Many of you know that. Many who know the pain of the rebellion that started spiritually, but it wound up showing up relationally. Adam... He says, "He will rule over you." He will become this domineering person because of the sin, and so there will be a mis-definition of manhood, that he will define manhood by the street, no longer by God.
"Why? Why you going to do this? Why, why, why? Why you going to do this?" Well, look at what He says. He says to Adam, He says in verse 17, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife." Ooh, wait a minute. I'm supposed to... Oh, then I'm not supposed to listen to my wife? Isn't she my helpmate? Yeah, 'cause she disagrees with me.
The closest person in your life is never to trump God. No matter how much you love her, I know you love her. I know you didn't want to lose her, but when it comes to Me, it trumps her. That the closest person to you is not to overrule Me. Now I know why. I know why he got overruled: man got sympathetic. See, she come blinking them eyelashes: "Hey, baby, I took a little bite of this fruit, and I don't want to go down by myself. So will you help a sister out and join me in my rebellion?"
Adam don't want to lose his wife. You don't want her to be judged. And yeah, "because you listened to your Ms." So here's the basic principle: Adam was responsible. See, the definition of a kingdom man is he's responsible. He didn't say, "Adam and Eve, where are y'all?" He said, "Adam, where are you?" 'Cause I commanded you, and you were supposed to deal with it.
By the way, man, Numbers chapter 30 says that a man is responsible for the vows of his wife. So I had this—a couple was getting ready to get married, and so I was counseling them for their marriage. And so I said, "Okay, what are some of the challenges?" He said, "Well, she's made all this debt, you know. She's made all this debt, so she's got all these bills. That's going to be a challenge."
So I said, "Well, let me ask you a question: are you willing to own them?" "Oh, no, we got that straight. When we get married, she got to pay her own bills." So I looked at her, and I said, "Don't marry him. Don't marry him now, 'cause he don't get it. When he marries you, he takes that as his responsibility. You can help with it, but he got to own it." Makes a man want to stay single, right? They make a man want to stay single, 'cause you supposed to own that thing, 'cause you are the one responsible.
And so He says to him that there will be this clash relationally—marital conflict. That was not the only kind of death. That would be an economic death. Notice: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree (verse 17) which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it,' cursed is the ground because of you."
"In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field, but by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground." There will be physical repercussions economically for you, because death is a separation. Right now, before you rebelled against Me, all this stuff grew for you.
I made it all available for you. The ground was plenteous; you're going to have plenty of fruit and plenty of vegetables and all that, and it's just going to naturally happen without you breaking a sweat. Oh, how we would long for the day when you don't have to break a sweat, why you don't have to make ends meet. He says, "Because now your rebellion against Me has created thorns and thistles."
In other words, your productivity is going to be interrupted. It's going to be interrupted by this death growth—thorns and thistles that stick you and irritate you. You're trying to pick berries, and you're getting stuck because of thorns and thistles. Your rebellion against Me has affected your ability to provide livelihood without pain. There is an economic cost to this disobedience.
And many of us know it. Many of us are so in debt with the thorns and thistles of disobedience that we'll have to die before we can pay it off with insurance, because we've rebelled against God. It shows up over and over and over again. We got to deal with the thorns and thistles of the people we got to work with, the thorns and thistles of people we got to work for.
We got to deal with all these attitudes; they got to deal with us. "I want to change jobs and find something better so I can be at peace, 'cause my career is thorns and thistles, even though I get a green paycheck." He says, "Because you didn't listen to Me, and you let a human being—even your wife—overrule Me, it's going to affect your career."
Oh, but that's not all. I know all of us are tired of dying by now, but stay with me. That's not all. The one we know about most would be physical death. He says at the end of verse 19, "Till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken. For you are dust, until you return to the ground." That means buried. Okay, stay with me here. "Because you are dust."
Okay, I don't want you to miss that. "You are going back to the ground, 'cause that's what you are. You are dust. You're dirt." Okay, look at the person next to you. Let's look at him—both sides. Look at him. You know what you just looked at? Dirt. Dirt, dirt. Okay? You may be good-looking dirt. You may be rich dirt. You may be sophisticated dirt. You may be well-known dirt. You may be poor dirt.
But on your best day, you are dirt. And the proof you are dirt is that you are going to get dirty at the point of your demise, because you will go back to the ground. And no matter how much Botox you take, how much cosmetic surgery you get, or how many wigs you have, you are going back to dirt. See, that's why you can't get too overly impressed with folk.
You can't get too overly impressed with folks who look like they got it on, got it going on, 'cause all they are is dirt. They may have achieved something so it don't look dirty, but all they are is dirt, because they all going back. We're all going back to the grave. So much for the divinity of man. He says you're going to go back to dust, because when you want to be independent from Me, there are repercussions.
And then there's the worst kind of death: eternal death. Eternal death is where the soul is separated from God forever. We call it hell. That's eternal death. That is where for one billion, one zillion, one quadrillion years, you get to live in your sinfulness forever. That's why He had to put Adam and Eve out of the garden. God says, therefore, verse 23: "The Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken."
"So He drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and flaming swords which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life." A separation from God. But eternal death is forever. When Pandora's husband came in, he saw her curled over in pain because of the evil she had unleashed by opening the box.
Pandora's husband opened the box, and there was one little thing at the bottom of the box. And when he opened the box, the one little thing flitted out of the box, and it had written on it one word: "Hope." Hallelujah. All this evil had come out when she opened the box, but when he came afterward and opened it, one little thing fluttered out called hope.
With all this death, is there any hope? Verse 15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." This woman is going to have a baby, and when this baby comes along, he's going to crush the head of the serpent. So I want to close by introducing you to the hope, because it's going to take a long time to unfold.
So, to apply it to all the stuff we've talked about, but to understand history—all of history from Adam to today and all the deaths that we all are dealing with—you only have to understand one name given to two. Romans chapter 5, beginning with verse 15. I'm going to read this whole section and then give you a closing thought.
"But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The many who had died, the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, Adam."
"But on the one hand the judgment arose from the one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ."
"So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous. The law came in so that the transgressions would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the much more."
"So that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So let me give you a word of hope. Through the one Adam, the infection of sin and death was transferred to all men for all time, everywhere. But 1 Corinthians 15 says Jesus is the last Adam.
So if you want to get it, all you need are two names. Your attachment to the first Adam brings sin and death. But your attachment to the last Adam allows you—watch this—He said "to reign in life." What does it mean to reign in life? It means to no longer be controlled by the graveyard of your existence, no longer to allow sin to be your boss and Satan to be your god.
But once Jesus takes over control, the Bible says He said, "I've come to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly." So Jesus Christ wants to give you the life back that Satan has ripped off from you in your spiritual relationship, your emotional relationship, your economic relationships, your personal relationships, your physical relationships.
He wants to wipe that thing so clean that once you're in right relationship to Him, you don't even get to die, 'cause He says you immediately go to be with the Lord. So He is reversing that thing. I love the phrase: He doesn't just want you to live; He wants you to reign in life. He wants you to tell your emotions what to do, tell your circumstances what to do, tell the evil one what to do.