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5/9/10. Genesis 2:20b- 5:5. What ever happened to Eve?

What ever happened to Eve? Eve …The Mother Of All The Living

adam-and-eve

 Link to the Kevin’s Bible Material                   Link to “What ever happened to that person?” series

Genesis 2:20b- 5:5                                                                             Kevin E. Jesmer  5-9-10

Key verse 3:20,

 

“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”

 

Today is mother’s day and we want to learn about various mothers in the Bible…mothers that you often don’t hear about. We hear a lot of Mary the mother of Jesus or Hannah the mother of Samuel. They are great examples of mothers. But do we hear about other mothers that are equally important? What about Noah’s wife? What about Moses’ mother? Do you know her name? Jochebed (Ex 6:20). Today we want to take a close look at Eve and find out what kind of mother she was and what we can learn from her motherhood. At best I may have another 50-60 years of preaching left in me. And so I can write about 50 or 60 mothers in the Bible. This is the first of the series….Eve…the mother of all the living.

 

Did you know that people are not that different from each other? Even though we may look different on the outside, on the inside we are very similar. Our DNA is very similar. An Eskimo in the Canadian Arctic and an Aborigine native in Australia look like they are worlds apart, but in reality, when you analyze their DNA they are actually more closely related to each other than two chimpanzees from two neighboring chimp groups in West Africa. Evolutionists would have you think that a massive natural catastrophe killed all other forms of humanoids and left only one type of homosapien, and that is why were are so similar. But there is another, more believable explanation. How about exploring the fact that we all came from the same mother? And that mother is Eve. She went through so much and has an incredible spiritual journey to share with us. Let’s take a closer look at Eve and discover some of her qualities as a woman and a mother.

Part l: God Establishes A Beautiful Family (18-25) 

     God cared about Adam and wanted to introduce him to Eve. Read verse 2:18. “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.‘” Eden was beautiful, a perfect paradise. But God looked and saw something that was not good. “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  So one day, after Adam had worked hard doing God’s work, he fell into a deep sleep (19,20). God took one of his ribs and from it he made woman, and he brought her to Adam.

 

There was a good purpose for creating a woman. She was not to be an object of pleasure. She was not a reward for Adam’s hard work. She was not to be Adam’s servant or be a solution to his loneliness problem. God created a woman to help the man fulfill the mission God had given him. She was to be his companion, his helper and his friend. She, too, was created in God’s image. Therefore she could worship God and participate in God’s mission for them with deep understanding and a common love for God and faith in God, right alongside her husband, Adam. The fact that she was created from Adam’s rib means that she was supportive and protective and would stand with Adam, side by side.

 Adam was very happy…so happy that he made this confession of love: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man” (2:23). Adam welcomed Eve with his whole heart. He did not know her. He did not date her. He did not live with her to “check her out.” He trusted God absolutely. Eve trusted God too. She did not get upset saying, “Who is this Adam guy you’re introducing me too?” God himself united them thereby creating the first family. They were united as one by God, absolutely committed to one another in love and faith. A home is built on this confession of love and on this union of two personalities coming together as one. Verse 25 implies that they were free and innocent in their relationship with one another. There were no artificial barriers and no competition between them. They felt no shame, revealing that they had the right relationship with God, for shame comes from sin. They joyfully served God and loved each other and were very happy. Verse 2:24 reads, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.” Adam made a life-long commitment to Eve. They worked together to fulfill their mission in the Garden of Eden and glorify God. From the establishment of this first family we learn that God cares about our happiness and wants to make us truly happy. We must entrust our lives and our future so that his grace may be poured out on us. God is good and he wants the best for us. Do you believe this? (Matt 6:33) Can you trust God like Adam and Eve did?

 

Part ll: The Fall (3:1-24)

 

But one day something tragic happened to this beautiful family. Satan came to deceive the woman. He had told her that eating the forbidden fruit would make her as wise as God, and she believed him was tempted to disobey God. (4-6) Satan didn’t tell her the tragic consequences of disobedience. Her physical desires, which were intended to enrich her life, became unrestrained.  The fruit was beautiful and looked delicious. It became very desirable. So, without any further thought, she took it and ate. Her act was an act of obedience to Satan and an act of disobedience to God. She moved from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of Satan. Guilt longs for company, so she gave some of the forbidden fruit to Adam; he ate and joined her in the kingdom of Satan. Their innocence was gone. (7) They tried to cover themselves to hide from each other. They tried to hide from God. (8b-9) The beautiful relationships with God and with one another were broken. (12-13) Adam blamed the woman for giving him the forbidden fruit, and he blamed God for giving him the woman.  Fear, guilt and broken relationships are the gifts of Satan. When God called, “Adam, where are you?” Adam could not but reveal the spiritual turmoil in his heart. He was lost. Their lives and their new family had fallen apart. There was nothing else God could do except discipline them spiritually (14-19), care for their needs (21) and expel them from the garden. (22-24)

 

It is important to understand the new setting that this house church found themselves in. They just disobeyed God’s command and were cast out of the Garden of Eden. They were in a bad spiritual condition. Their burden on their hearts was immense. They were filled with shame and were afraid of God and hiding from God. They were blaming the each other. Eve blamed the devil and Adam blamed God, saying, “The woman you put in here with me, she made me do it.” (12) They were in desperate need of marriage counseling but with no one to offer it to them.

 

 

 

Part lll:  The Worst Case Scenario

What could their family life be like after the fall? Let’s see. God had warned them in Genesis 3:17, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” After the fall, they surely began to die in so many ways. Their home life and their spiritual life suffered. Look at 2:17-19, “To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 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.” Adam’s life would be incredibly difficult. Under the curse he would work painful, long days in the fields. There would be a never ending battle controlling the weeds. Thorns and thistles would pierce his hands. Every meal was hard earned through the blood, sweat and tears of Adam. When he thought he was getting a little bit ahead, some natural disaster would destroy what his hands had built. One year a tornado blew down his barns. Another year a flood ruined a crop. And then there was the brush fire that killed so many of his flocks. His own mortality was before him as he felt arthritis setting into his back and his knees. He thought to himself, “Will this ever end? I’ll have to work like this until I am an old man.” Every day was the same old routine…work, eat, sleep — work, eat, sleep – only waiting to die. Sometimes he skipped family worship to make sure that the harvest was in. Adam felt meaningless crying out to his sheep, “What do you think of my life?” They would reply in unison, “ It’s bahhhhh’d

Eve too, suffered a lot. Let’s read 3:16, “To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” She would be faced with intense labor pains when she gave birth to children. Labor lasted for 15 hours for Cain and 20 hours for Able. She almost died both times. The thought of death crossed her mind every time she told Adam, “Honey, I’m pregnant.” Not only that, she would be obsessed with Adam, desiring all of his time and love and devotion all the time. It was a constant battle to keep her mind focused on worshipping God. Eve would be forever disappointed with Adam’s love, for Adam was no longer the gentle, loving, understanding person he consistently was while living in the Garden. Now, Adam would rule over Eve, becoming demanding and insensitive. After a hard day working in the fields he would push his dinner to the floor and say, “This is too cold…This place is a mess. I worked hard all day in the fields. What did you do all day?” Eve was left to cry, cleaning up the spilled food and eating quietly with young Cain and Able trying to console them, “It’s o.k. boys. Daddy’s just having a bad day.” The boys sat eating in silence.

 

Satan was also out to get this couple. Look at Genesis 2:14-15. Satan had just been cursed by God. All of his glory and beauty was taken from him. (3:14) There was now mutual hatred towards this family and himself. (3:15) Satan also is very desperate because he knows his time is short. God will one day send a Savior, the offspring of a woman, who would deliver a fatal blow to him. (15) This would be Jesus Christ, who would defeat the Satan through his own suffering, death and resurrection. The devil hates God. He hates God’s children and so the devil began to prowl around like a roaring lion, waiting to pounce on Adam and Eve to devour them, first separating them from each other and then driving them towards death and eternal damnation. Adam and Eve, and their descendents would be harassed daily by the devil for many millennia. When Adam worked hard in the fields, the devil would prompt his heart to despair to the point of contemplating suicide. Adam took his frustrations out on Eve and the boys. Satan would prompt Eve to hate Adam and leave him. She worried about the boys and the effect on their psyche. Such is family life under the curse.

 

Part lll: Eve Overcame By Faith

 

That was the worst case scenario. It is exactly the kind of life that so many young families are finding themselves in this dry, spiritual desert we call “Western Culture.” Though Adam and Eve were tempted to live like this day in and day out, for the rest of their lives, (some days were like this to be certain) there is evidence that they did not succumb to the devil’s temptations, nor to their own negative feelings and emotions.

 

Though they had been blaming each other for what has happened, Adam and Eve still loved each other. Let’s read 3:20, “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living.” Eve means “living.” Instead of seeing Eve as, “The woman you put here with me.” (Gen 3:12a) Adam had spiritual eyes to see his wife with eyes of hope and life. He saw her from God’s point of view. Verse 4:1 reveals that they had normal marital relationships. Eve forgave Adam for his grumpiness and Adam repented of blaming his wife for everything. They were two forgiving, forgiven sinners. They were committed to building a family together. That is the foundation that any healthy family needs.

 

Adam and Eve knew the deep grace of God. Look at 3:21, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”  God could have cast them out of the garden and forgot about them. But he didn’t. He cared about their nakedness. He killed one of his own animals to clothe them. This sacrifice of an animal is also an indication that God covered them with his own righteousness that he provided. And they accepted it. Adam and Eve had received some very hard training from God. Most people would have become very bitter and blamed God for the predicament that they themselves had put themselves into. But they did not. Eve’s heart remained tender, constantly being reminded of the deep grace of God for her family.

 

They still had hope in the kingdom of God. Look 3:24, “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” God could have completely destroyed the Garden of Eden or the pathway to it. But he did not. The Garden of Eden is still there for all who place their faith, hope and trust in God. We call it, “The Kingdom of God.” Eve possessed this hope in her heart and this hope gave her strength and life direction. She knew that her life would not end in the cruel desert, but that her life was a pilgrimage…a journey back the kingdom of God where she would dwell in perfect paradise with God forever. This hope helped her to look beyond the suffering, the poverty, the bitter words that were sometimes spoken around the home. She had a clear life direction to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness in all she did. (Matthew 6:33)

 

Eve had hope in the coming Messiah. When God cursed the serpent he said in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [a] and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”  This verse is called the “pre-gospel” In this verse God promises to send a Savior, the offspring of a woman who deliver a fatal blow the devil. But in doing so, this savior would suffer, but not be killed. Jesus fulfills this prophecy. He eternally defeated the devil through his suffering and death and resurrection. Eve knew that no matter how furious the devil’s attacks were on their small house church, the Savior would win the ultimate victory. She would find strength knowing that though there were many battles and struggles, they had already won the war when they held onto the hope of God, through faith. This hope in the victorious suffering Savior was the strength they needed to carry on with their struggles of life, with a victorious spirit.

 

They tried their best to worship God by faith, through sacrifices. Think of their situation. They were cast out into a world of suffering by a God who was angry with their sin. There was a great chasm because of their sin. They could have been overcome with self –condemnation, bitterness or despair or a combination of all three. Many people would have given up trying to worship God. Many would have stopped going to church, saying, “What’s the use?” or “What has God ever done for me?” But this family continued to worship God. There were no other people to show them the way. There was no Bible. Maybe they remembered the animal skins that God clothed them with. They tried to come to God through the offering up of sacrifices. This revealed their desire to please God and come to him with contrite hearts, offering something that cost them. Adam and Eve taught their children how to worship God too.

 

Look at 4:1-2, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. [b] She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth [c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.” They raised a family. They had a least three sons, Able, Cain and Seth. They approached a hard life with hope and expectation. They could have said, “I don’t want to bring any children into this cruel world. Why make them suffer?” But their faith in God gave them hope. They were not afraid to build a family. They didn’t say, “How can we provided for their needs.” They just did it by faith, dedicating their children to God, teaching them to worship God and hoping that they would grow to be sources of blessing to the world.

 

Let’s think more about their teaching their kids to worship God. Let’s read 4:3-4, 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,” How did Cain and Able know that there was a God? Adam and Eve must have taught them. They did not say, “They can believe what they want when they get older.” They taught them how to worship God from a young age even teaching them that they must give their best to God. Children are blessed when their parents take the time to teach them how to worship from a young age. Our kids have been coming to church since 4 years old. Jason’s dad led daily morning Bible studies every day and now Jason loves Jesus and the word of God. Ruth Graham had family devotionals with their kids twice a day and now their kids are changing history, especially Franklin Graham. We need to take time to teach the younger generation how to worship God by offering their hearts and lives to him and accepting the ultimate blood sacrifice, Jesus Christ.

 

They taught their kids how to work hard. Many parents spoil their kids. Not Eve. They worked hard, by the sweat of their brow, setting the example for the boys. And it paid off. Able was a hard working man, taking care of flocks of sheep. Cain was a man of the soil, producing grains and vegetables and fruits. Let’s take a lesson from Eve teaching our kids how to work hard, especially by setting the example in our own lives.

 

They saw the dramatic increase in the number of their descendants. They had so many grandchildren and great grandchildren. There is a man living in Dubai who has 83 kids. He hopes to have 100 kids before he dies. They must have taught their grandkids, and all of their descendants the ways of God. They were not lonely seniors, but well connected to the lives of their extended family.

 

They had joys of seeing the sincere faith of their son Able. Look at 4:4, “But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering” How their hearts must have beamed every time Able asked sincere questions regarding faith and worship. How happy they must have been when they saw Able willingly bringing his sincere offering to the Lord. He gave his best. Eve felt like Joseph and Mary when they found 12 year old Jesus in the temple asking deep questions. (Lk 2:41-52) May we all experience the joys of seeing our kids coming to sincere faith in God. They also saw Seth growing in faith. Seth probably means “Granted.” He was an answer to Eve’s prayer that God would give them another sincere son, who could stand as a man of faith and God granted that request. The Bible says that Seth was made in the likeness of Adam, who was made in the likeness of God. (Gen 5:1-2) After Seth was born men began to call on the name of the Lord. (Gen 4:26) That means he must have been preaching and influencing the people of his generation towards sincere faith in God. What a joy it is to see Jenn teaching Anais the Bible and for all the kids participating in campus mission.

 

There were also some dark spots in their family life that faith helped them to overcome. They despaired at seeing the empty forms of worship in Cain’s heart. (4:5) They knew that every time Cain came to offer up a sacrifice to God it was it was with a grudging, stingy heart. They knew that Cain really didn’t love God and was self-righteous and sarcastic. (4:9) When saw the sibling rivalry between their two sons, they must have tried to intervene many times, but to know avail. Cain wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t back down. They saw the hate in Cain’s heart. All they could do it pray for him. They eventually would have to bear the fact that their own son, Cain was murderer and that he would leave home, lost in sin and darkness and  maybe to be never be seen again. There are times when even very sincere servants of God see their own children fall away from God. The prophet Samuel was one of these people. (1 Sam 8:5) It is a great burden on any parent’s heart, but it does drive us to prayer and trust in God.
They lost their precious Able. (Gen 4:8) No parent should have to bury their own child. It could be one of the saddest things that a person could do. No words could describe the grief they bare. Eve faced this extreme grief. They lost their older son Cain to his sin. For them, it was like they were loosing two sons that day. But this grief did not paralyze them. Look at 4:25, “Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, ‘God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.’” They carried on with their lives. They started again to build a family of faith.

 

In a worldly sense Cain was successful. He built cities in the far off land of Nod. The people he ruled over had technology and an agricultural commerce. Adam and Eve would have heard of their sons successes in the world. Cain may have sent messengers to them hoping to hear his parents say, “I’m proud of you son.” Maybe Cain longed for his parent’s forgiveness for killing Abel. Adam and Eve would be happy to learn of their son’s successes but his victory rang hollow in their hearts. They knew that even if Cain ruled the whole world, it would be nothing if he did not have the right relationship with God. They prayed for his salvation daily.

 

In this passage we can see that despite their difficult circumstances, Adam and Eve overcame their feelings and loved each other. Adam saw his wife with eyes of hope and life. They lived and two forgiving, forgiven sinners. They were committed to building their family, with hope and expectation, even though the world and the devil tried to destroy it. Eve could remain strong because she knew the deep grace of God. Eve maintained her hope in the kingdom of God and sought it. She hoped in the first coming of Jesus. She taught their sons to be men, to work hard, the worship God, to sacrifice. She had the joy of seeing some of her children walking in the Lord and grieved at one son falling away from God. She bore the sorrow of burying a child. But through it all, Eve kept her faith and her hope and moved ahead in life, by faith.

 

 

 




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