Effects of Sin

To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:16-19 (ESV)

These verses from Genesis poetically describe when our Lord God pronounced judgment upon the whole of creation (for the purposes of this post, I chose only the verses in which the Lord speaks directly to Adam and Eve.) I am sure most of us are familiar with these verses. Chapter three of Genesis is a very important chapter, it is here we get an explanation for all the decay, pain, turmoil and ultimately death that we see in the world. Adam and Eve did not guard themselves from the temptation of the serpent, which then became desire and their desire then brought forth sin and sin then lead to death (James 1:14,15.)

We are all well aware of the curse. For women, pain in childbirth and rearing and conflict with her husband (her wanting to usurp his authority and him ruling over her.) For men, hard work to provide food for our family. Not only do we have hard work, but the very ground is going to fight back with thorns and thistles. Our lives are now to work the dirt we came from to live until the day that we return to the dust from whence we came. Now, according to Dr. John MacArthur, these were special curses (on top the the general curse that fell upon all of creation) that are to remind us constantly of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and how God hates it so.

As of lately my eye has been drawn to another effect sin. I was recently flipping though a magazine and I suddenly stopped and could not pull my eyes from what I saw, a picture of a little girl with a cleft pallet. Sorrow filled my heart. As of recently, that has been happening more and more. I see mentally handicap children, children with deformities, babies dying in the womb and my heart breaks. I shake my head at how sin has permeated even our DNA! I also see the mentally challenged adults and my heart breaks for them as well. When I see these effects on the "innocent" it actually causes a tear in my eye, and I am not one who crys. Maybe having a child myself has caused me to be more sensitive to such things.

I have also been sensitive to people who are suffering from degenerative diseases. I was talking with a manager at one of my stores today who has rheumatoid arthritis, she is only 45 and was diagnosed 20 years ago. She is currently almost completely crippled in her hands and has virtually no wrist joints. Her knuckles are very inflamed and she says she is in almost constant pain. She has been offered wrist replacement surgery, but she has opted out for now (they would have to remove her hands!) When she walked way to help a customer, I could not help but fight back a tear! This is just one example of physical disease in our world not even counting sicknesses. Oh how sin has buried its tentacles in everything!

I recently watched Visual Bible: Matthew in which Bruce Marchiano portrays Jesus in fashion that I have not seen in any movie made about Him. Most movies of Jesus we see him as stern and fairly unemotional except for anger. This movie portrays Jesus' softer and compassionate side with out compromising His hard and stern language and emotion. In the scenes when Jesus is healing people you can see the pain in His eyes. Who could see the incredibly disastrous effects of sin? Mr. Marchiano does an amazing job conveying the sorrow and compassion that Jesus must have felt toward his fallen creation. How merciful of a God it is we serve! Not only do we have God's common grace all around us (the mere fact that we are all still alive,) not only did he heal people (when He was here on earth,) He also willingly died on a cross to atone for the elect's sins for complete spiritual and eventual physical healing!

I really had a lot more to say but that would have gotten me WAY off topic. Listening to John MacArthur's sermons on chapter three of Genesis has given me grat insight into those verses that i will explore in another post!