Genesis 3:1-13; 18:1-2, 9-15; Ruth 1:3-5, 8-13, 19-21. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Mother’s Day, May 12, 2024.
We are going to focus on three different women in order to see a dynamic that exists between hurts and wounds that we experience in life and the lies we come to believe because of them.
How have I let wounds be a source of entrenching lies in my heart and mind? Much of the Christian walk involves a person letting the Word of God and the Spirit of God help us to discover and remove the lies that we have been living by.
Let’s look at our passages.
In verse 13, we see that Eve realizes that she was deceived by the serpent, the devil. She believed him and then did what seemed right. The moment when a person realizes that they have been duped, or deceived, is a horrible moment. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach can occurs moments after you realize that you have just been scammed a lot of money by someone. It is the same realization that Pinocchio had on the Island of Pleasure when he laughed at the other boy, who was turning into a donkey, and heard his own laughter turn into the bray of a donkey.
Eve’s wound is that she was deceived and then did something that brought harm to her husband and future children. Of course, the results of being deceived are manifold, and they are not the only wounds a person experiences in life. However, we will focus on this one.
Can you imagine later when Eve hears that her eldest son, Cain, had killed her next son, Abel? Yes, there is that horrible realization of the unthinkable happening, but quick on its heels would be the realization that this is just another fruit of that prior deception and fatal action.
At this point, it is instructive to just recognize how the serpent, the devil (see Revelation 12:9), operates. Her first mistake was listening to what that liar had to say. This is subtly pointed out by God when He questions Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?” The implication is more about the being with whom they have been talking, and not specifically what he said. It doesn’t matter what the devil says. It will always be a deceptive lie.
The devil’s first question completely overstates God’s command. “Did God really say that you can’t eat from the trees of the garden?” He first gets her to defend God by stating they can eat from all the trees but one. Then, he directly contradicts God with a lie. “You will not surely die!” Thirdly, he accuses God’s motive for holding out this one tree from them. “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The implication is that God doesn’t want any competition, and so, He is holding you back from something good.
Now, there are lies that we are told, but there are also lies that we come to believe as a result of them. The first lie may be recognized and then rejected. I do not believe Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil again. They knew that he had tricked them, and they would not be listening to his lie that they can do something to become like God. It is here that the wounding affects our heart and mind. Because of the hurtful situation, our heart and mind will gravitate towards ideas and thoughts that rise up within us. The wounding process itself can embed a subtle lie into our soul. These lies are harder to remove.
Take a young child who is abused for example. They may be yelled at, and or beaten, while being told that they are stupid, dumb, and a pain in the backside by a parent who is consumed with their own pain. As an adult, the child may come to realize that their parent was simply messed up. They were not speaking truth, but emoting in the midst of pain, venting their frustrations on the easiest thing near them, you. This does not guarantee an instantaneous freedom from the inner lie that you are not worthy of love because something is drastically wrong with you. By the time an adult comes to realize the wound, they have lived with a lie for a very long time. Even when we know it is untrue, those lies are often our default response, almost instinctual.
Satan doesn’t appear to us as a serpent anymore. But, he is still a liar and our enemy. There is a lot of water under the bridge of humanity’s history of listening to the serpent. He has raised up lies in the form of wise-sounding statements, ideas, philosophies, and even wise-sounding false religions. This sea of sophistry crosspollinates in a young person’s life as they grow up. The wounds we experience will take hold of those things that are close at hand, which are often lies.
What were some of the things that may have stuck in Eve’s heart and mind following the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? We don’t know for sure, but here are some lies that we would tend to believe.
“I am so stupid!” We can beat ourselves up for being innocent, but that wasn’t Eve’s true problem. Her true problem is that she didn’t trust God, no matter what. She isn’t stupid; she was just played.
“I messed it up and so I am not worthy of love!” This can be between Eve and Adam, between Eve and her children, and between Eve and God. No matter how many times another person tells us that they love us, we can internally rebuff the idea because we know that we are not worthy of love. “If they only knew the truth about me!” Or, “They are just saying that to be nice, but the truth is…”
At this point, let me remind us that God shows up and speaks into the situation. God never curses Adam and Eve. He curses the serpent (you will crawl on your belly and eat the dust!), and He curses the earth. When God finally addresses Eve, He points to one thing that He will do to her, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children…” However, the second part points to something that will be more of a consequence of her sin, rather than a direct action of God. “Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” Verse 15 is somewhat vague and that may be on purpose. It can have a perfectly good interpretation. Eve will have a desire towards her husband, and he will protectively shelter her. It is the imagery of how their relationship will be affected by living in a sinful world. The woman’s weaker frame now becomes a liability and she will desire a husband to help protect her in this world, to which a good husband would give himself fully. Yet, it also has some sinister connotations. This is most likely because God is not just talking about Eve. By extension, all the daughters of Eve will have individual experiences of life and with husbands. It cannot be by accident that God warns Cain with these same words in Genesis 4. He warns Cain that sin’s “desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” This leaves room for a more sinister experience to happen between husband and wife. A friction involving desire and power can infect the relationship in sinful ways.
Another lie that Eve could come to believe is this. “I am no match for my enemy, so there is no hope.” We should notice in Genesis 3:15, after placing a curse on the serpent, that God also promises help to mankind. God sees that Satan has attacked humanity through the woman, and so, God states that He will put a hostility between the woman and the serpent, between her offspring and the serpent’s offspring. He then promises that the woman will give birth to a particular offspring, and “He will crush [the serpent’s] head, and you will crush his heel.” It clearly pictures a man, but a man who comes from a woman. God could have spoke about Adam’s offspring, but it seems clear that God is signaling that the woman will be uniquely instrumental in the bringing forth of the head crusher. This makes sense when we see the miraculous birth of Messiah Jesus. No man was involved in the conception of Jesus. Thus, God gives Eve and Adam hope, a promise.
It is easier to believe the lies of the wounds we receive than to believe God’s promises to us in His word. There is always a hurt, cynical part of our heart that almost refuses to believe. God let me be hurt, so how can I trust Him? Thus, Eve may give herself fully to having children at first. Hey, if I am going to give birth to the head crusher of my enemy, then let’s do this! Yet, when Cain kill Abel, Eve realizes that this is more complicated than she may have thought. Centuries later, they would understand that this will not be a quick turn around. Thus, the long plan of God can be hard to trust even when it promises hope.
By the way, we must understand that Satan hated, and still hates, this power of humans to create offspring. God had fit Adam and Eve against their enemy even before he struck. The Satan tricked Eve, but she would have children. For his plan to work, he is stuck tricking a new generation over and over again. Talk about a drudgery. Yet, in this, he would never know when one of those kids would raise up to crush his head. Talk about fear. Every time a man and woman put their trust in God and give birth to the next generation- now not to bring forth Messiah, but because we have a promise that He is helping us against our enemy- he hates it. This is behind all the attacks against gender, marriage, birth, etc. Satan hates us because God is using us to crush him in the dust.
God’s Word to us is intended to be a firehose that blasts the crud of lies that has caked itself on our hearts and minds. It enables us to have faith and believe the Truth over the top of the lies that our heart wants to hang on to.
Let’s talk about Sarah, the wife of Abraham. At the point of our passage, Abraham is 99 years old and Sarah is 89. We might recognize that the ages of humans have been dropping ever since the flood. Abraham lives to 175 years old, and Sarah lives to 127. But, even with that in mind, the text tells us that Sarah has passed the age of bearing children.
Now, Abraham had been promised a multitude of offspring by God back when he was 75 (24 years before). At some point, Sarah realizes that she is not going to have any children so she has Abraham bear a child in her name through her maid servant, Hagar. This was a cultural mechanism that existed at the time. Hagar would be considered a second-class wife of Abraham with particular privileges that would not be as great of those of Sarah. This had happened about 13 years earlier. Yet, God had told Abraham that Ishmael would not be the one through whom the Promise would be fulfilled. It would not be a child that came about by sheer will of man and work of the flesh. Rather, it would be a miracle of God.
This helps us to see the wound that Sarah had. She had been unable to bear a child for her husband to whom God had promised many offspring. She had to live with the social stigma that her husband had no heir because she was fruitless. She also had to live with the personal feelings of worthlessness. No matter how much Abraham told her that he loved her, it would not be enough to fill the hurt of the wound in her soul. He loved her and she loved him.
Let me take a few minutes to address polygamy at this time. We should recognize that God gave Adam one wife. The first time we see polygamy mentioned in the Bible, it is Lamech from the line of Cain. Secondly, the polygamy we see with the patriarchs is itself instructive. Abraham only “marries” Hagar because Sarah wants a baby so badly that she insists upon it. Neither of them see it as good, but as an answer for a bad situation. Of course, Isaac and Rebekah are a single couple with no polygamy. Yet, with Jacob we see it again.
Notice that Jacob only has eyes for Rachel. If it had been up to him, he would have only married Rachel and moved on. Yet, Rachel’s dad tricked him into sleeping with Leah and consummating a tricked marriage. Of course, he is not leaving without the woman he loves so he ends up married to two sisters. Yet, these sisters are envious of one another and use the number of babies they have as a club against one another. This causes Rachel to insist that Jacob have children through her maid servant (as Abraham had done with Hagar). Then, Leah insists on the same with her maid servant. None of this presents polygamy as an acceptable thing. In fact, it begs the wisdom of relying upon it to answer a physical problem. It only brought trouble to those who practiced it.
No husband (or wife) can fill the wound of their spouse with their love because there are lies that are entrenched within the wound. Yet, God can use a godly spouse to help the other to heal.
Sarah came to believe that she would never have a child. When did she become convinced of that? Probably right before she suggested that Abraham marry her maid servant. Even prophetic words from God to Abraham were not enough for her to trust and wait. She may have had a little hope when Hagar had Ishmael, but it is clear that this dissipated. She had given up on ever having a child as God had promised her husband. She was the weak point of this plan. God may love her husband, but He clearly doesn’t love her. He would be better off to get rid of her.
I can’t know that all of these things went through her mind, but similar things did. She had come to believe that she would not be blessed of God and that she was worthless to her husband.
Yet, she would one day have a child as this passage explains. The thought was ridiculous and caused her to laugh in her heart. How many times do we give lip service to God, and yet laugh in our heart that anything will change in our life? Of course, when we persist in idolizing lies in our heart, we will continue to chafe under God’s promises. Sarah would laugh on the day she realized she was pregnant. She names her baby “laughter,” Isaac. However, that alone does not heal the wound. How many other ways has the ideas of worthlessness and being unloved, not blessed, affected her life (our lives)?
Of the three women, we know the most about what was going through Naomi’s mind. If you pause and think about what is said by each of her statements, you will see that bitterness had taken hold of her heart. She was wounded deeply. Of course, we could say it is for good reason. What human wouldn’t be bitter and sorrowful, if their spouse and children died and they were left alone and old in a world that was not particularly kind to old and alone people.
This is similar to Job. He wrestled with how God could bring these things upon him. What had he done? In his mind, he could only wonder why God was so against him. Naomi probably said a lot of the same things as Job.
We see Naomi deciding to leave Moab and go back to Israel. She sends her daughters-in-law back to their families because they will have nothing with her. In short, she does so because she believes that she is cursed and they need to cut ties with her to get out from under the curse.
Naomi gives voice to several lies. She states that the LORD is against her, and thus, she has no hope. It is true that you have no hope if God is against you. However, she was misreading the situation. Yes, God let these things happen, but it was not because He was against her.
She also says that the LORD has dealt very bitterly with her. She further describes this as the LORD testifying against her and afflicting her. Thus, she is taking it personal. God has done this to her, and by so doing, He has testified that there is something wrong with her. These afflictions are taken as being from God to her. We should be careful of thinking that every bad thing that happens is done by God particularly to us.
In the story of Job, we see that it is primarily the Devil who is bringing these things upon Job. Yes, God is allowing it, and so, He is secondarily responsible. It begs the question. Can you still trust God when He let’s bad things happen to you? Will I cling to my hurts and stay stuck in unbelief towards the promises of God?
We need to be proactive in this and fill our minds with the Word of God, His promises. Don’t laugh at it in your heart. Or rather, I should say, remind yourself of these things when you feel a cynical chuckle rise in your heart. Is there anything too hard for God? No, of course not. If it is not a question of God’s power, then it is a question of His heart for me. In my woundedness, I am tempted to see God as trying to harm me and destroy me. Yet, this can’t be farther from the truth.
When you doubt God’s love for you, you must take time to look back at the cross. While [you] were yet a sinner, Christ died for [you]. Jesus went to the cross because He loves you and wants to redeem you back from the Fall of humanity, and he wants to deliver us from our enemy, the devil.
Both Sarah and Naomi saw God’s amazing answer in their life. However, it doesn’t always come as a natural answer. Some women will never have a child. Yet, we can recognize that God has purpose in it that is good. If I can’t have babies in the natural, then I can have spiritual offspring. How many kids are growing up in this world without the knowledge of God’s love for them? They will need spiritual moms and dads who come along side of them and help them to heal.
Take time this week to look back through your own life. What were the ways that you were hurt? What lies were embedded at that time in your heart and mind? We are not talking about thinking positive thoughts so that we can attract positive things towards us. This is about coming into conformity with the truth about what God says. God loved Jesus. Yet, he would have to die on a cross. Everything would tell the human side that God has forsaken him, but God is not a liar. Jesus pressed on because He trusted the heart of the Father and brought about a greater good than him becoming king of Israel in the first century AD.
Historically, I am a very bad judge of what is “good” in my life. How many times has God shown me that things of my past, that I spent decades complaining about, were actually a blessing from Him. They were producing something in me that would be invaluable later.
God tells us that we shall be perfect even as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Can I believe Him? By the Holy Spirit, with that life-force of God Himself, can I cooperate with God to bring about a good that I can’t even imagine? Or, perhaps at which I would simply laugh because of all the lies entrenched in my heart? Let us be those who drop off the lies, and grasp hold of the Truth of God’s love for us!