DEVOTION
GENESIS
THE SENTENCING OF MAN
Gen 3:17-19
17 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."
NIV
And now the sentence pronounced upon
the man. First, is there a difference between listening to
his wife, and seeking her counsel? However, the point that God is making is
that Adam was supposed to be the head of the woman, and he followed her into
evil instead of leading her into righteousness. We could get into all this situation
of our current culture and how it is turned upside down, with what seems so many men have abdicated their rightful positions as the head of the
household and women have picked up the mantle of leading the family. However,
we want to stay with the sentence that God placed upon man and see if man
has tried to change what God judged as right. Once Adam had all he could eat for
free within the garden, but now the ground is cursed and it will no longer produce
all the fruit from the trees for him, but he must, through painful toil, work
the ground all the days of his life to produce food for himself and
the woman. God also made it so that Adam would no longer be an eternal being,
that he would now return to the dust he was formed from. But what about working the ground or working to support oneself all the days of our lives
until we return to the dust from which we were formed. Did that sentence only apply
to Adam and not to the rest of humankind? The idea of retirement started
around the 18th century, which is a relatively new concept in the
history of mankind, although it did not take a full foothold in this country
until the time the government instituted the Social Security system. Now, we
have men even taking early retirement from their daily work by the sweat of their
brows and doing little for the rest of the days of their lives. What happened
to the sentence of God upon man for not being the head of his household and listening
to his wife. We know all that is old-fashioned and we know better than God and
want to live life on our own terms, stopping from our labor because we have
stored up enough in our barns so we can sit back and take life easy. We know
that was not meant for man for all throughout the ages, Jesus changed all that,
didn’t he? We do not think so, although Jesus does not want us to run after that which the pagans do, but seek first his kingdom, yet at the same time he told the parable
about the rich farmer who stored up for himself instead of being rich toward God.
Through Paul, God showed us that if a man does not work, he should not eat.
However, we know we will never fully refute the cultural concepts man has created
for himself, in fact, we enjoy some of those benefits, yet I know I should
labor all the days of my life, or at least as long as I can walk and talk
on my own, for that is what God has placed his sentence upon me. It is up to each
man to decide for himself as to how he follows God, and the sentence placed upon
man.
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