Sermon Tone Analysis

Rev. Paul Nelson

!

Introduction

This morning we begin a series on marriage.

Recently, there was an international competition in search for the husband of the year award.

Here are the top three finishers:  in third place from Albania a husband who is committed to keeping the home fires burning.

In second place, from Serbia, a very protective husband.

And in first place, from Ireland, this husband is always ready to lend his wife a helping hand (especially since beer is expensive in Ireland!).

Though there are many components that contribute to building a godly marriage, one of the keys is godly leadership by husbands.

Many husbands today lack confidence in their spiritual authority for a number of reasons, chief among them being the aggressive rejection of male leadership by secular and evangelical feminists.

What I want to show you today is that husband leadership is God’s design and that the failure to lead by the husband plunged the human race into sin and death and is the cause of conflict between husbands and wives.

Please turn with me to Genesis 2:7

!

Adam’s Leadership

The marriage of Adam and Eve really was a marriage made in heaven.

It was perfectly planned and perfectly performed by a perfect God.

First, God sculpted Adam:

*(Genesis 2:7 ESV) 7*then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Then God formed Eve:

*(Genesis 2:21-22 ESV) 21*So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

*22*And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

There was an order of authority in their relationship.

Adam was formed first, then Eve, as the Apostle Paul clearly taught:

*(1 Timothy 2:13 ESV) 13*For Adam was formed first, then Eve;

Eve was made for Adam, not Adam for Eve, as Paul also pointed out:

*(1 Corinthians 11:9 ESV) 9*Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

God created Eve to be Adam’s helper:

*(Genesis 2:18 ESV) 18*Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Finally, Adam’s authority was expressed in his naming Eve:

*(Genesis 2:23 ESV)   23*Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

The Word of God says,

*(Genesis 2:25 ESV) 25*And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

It was a relationship of perfect purity and innocence.

There was no sin in them.

There was no strife between them.

They were at peace with God and at peace with each other.

But their peace was shattered when Adam failed to lead.

!

Adam’s Silence

Adam and Eve came face to face with Satan, the archenemy of God.

Using the body of a serpent as his instrument, Satan focused his attack on Eve.

Satan used the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as his weapon.

God had placed that tree in the garden to be the symbol of Adam and Eve’s submission to Him:

*(Genesis 2:17 ESV)   17*but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Satan’s first approach with Eve was to question the Word of God.

*(Genesis 3:1 ESV)  1*Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Then Satan flatly denied God’s Word:

*(Genesis 3:4 ESV) 4*But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.

Finally, Satan ridiculed God and distorted His Word:

*(Genesis 3:5 ESV) 5*For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Satan’s assault was successful:

*(Genesis 3:6 ESV) 6*So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

The text is clear, Adam was with Eve during this encounter with Satan.

If Adam was there, why didn’t he say something?

Why didn’t he tell the serpent to get lost?

Why didn’t he correct Eve when she misquoted the command not to eat of the tree?

Why didn’t he suggest they go somewhere else to talk about the situation?

Why didn’t he stop Eve when she reached for the fruit?

We have no idea why Adam remained silent.

But we do know that he failed her woefully on this occasion.

He failed to provide spiritual leadership instead he was led into sin.

In the New Testament, Adam is held responsible for the Fall, not Eve.

*(Romans 5:12 ESV) 12*Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

This sheds an entirely different light on Adam’s silence.

Adam’s passivity devastated his marriage and his family.

Exactly what God said would happen did happen; Adam and Eve’s spirits died that very moment and their physical bodies began the slow process of decay.

In verse 16 God decreed the consequences of Eve’s sin:

*(Genesis 3:16 ESV)   16*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.”

God’s decree was two-fold.

First, as a mother, Eve, and all women after her, will suffer in relation to their children.

Eve will still be able to bear children.

This is God’s mercy by which He will carry out His death sentence on the Serpent.

But now all women will suffer in childbirth.

This is God’s severity for Eve’s sin.

The new element in Eve’s experience, then, is not childbirth but the pain of childbirth.

Second, as a wife, Eve will suffer in relation to her husband.

God said to Eve:

Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 4:7 helps us understand what this means:

*(Genesis 4:7 ESV)   7*If you (Cain) do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

In Genesis 4:7, God was warning Cain that sin desired to have its way with him, but that Cain must not allow sin to have its way over him.

Cain needed to rule over sin.

This helps us understand God’s words to Eve.

Just as sin’s desire was to have its way with Cain, God  gave the woman up to a desire to have her way with her husband.

Because she usurped his headship in the temptation, God hands her over to the misery of competition with her rightful head.

In Genesis 3:17-19, God decrees His judgment upon Adam:

*(Genesis 3:17-19 ESV)   17*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; *18*thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

*19*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.”

God gave Adam up to the painful and ultimately futile attempt to eke out a living from the cursed ground.

Work was not Adam’s punishment, just as childbearing was not Eve’s punishment.

The punishment was his pain in working the ground and his ultimate defeat in it.

After a lifetime of survival by the sweat of his brow, the ground from which he was first taken will swallow him up in death.

!

Conclusion

It was the failure of Adam to lead at the critical moment of attack that allowed sin and death to wreak havoc in our personal lives and in marriage.

The age old tension between husbands and wives can be traced back to Adam’s silence.

And I believe that we husbands continue to struggle with Adam’s silence, failing to speak up and speak out in loving communication and loving leadership in our marriages.

But we can change and we can grow through Jesus Christ.

We would be left in utter despair were it not for the promise God gave in verse 15.

In Genesis 3:15, God spoke judgment against Satan: