Lessons From Your 1st Mother

You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman.! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden. And I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock, and all the wild animals.

You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pains and childbearing. With pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

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. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

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 named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

And the Lord God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 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.

Well, before we hear the preaching of God's word, let's pray. O great God of providence, you determined the times and the exact places where we should live.

You determined the families and the mothers that we were born to. What wisdom and what kindness who is like you in heaven and our earth, who has such power and such control, joined to such love and such goodness.

No one is like you. No one's so powerful. No one's so kind. And so we come and we come praising you.

We come thanking you. And we come to you, the great giver of life and breath, and ask for the richest blessing on all of our mothers who are still living, who are still with us.

We pray that for those who are lost, that you would save. For those who are weak, will you help?

For those who are brokenhearted, will you heal and bind their hearts? O great God of providence, from one man.

You made all of the nations. And those nations spread out over the whole earth. And so many are still sitting in darkness, alienated from God.

Alienated because of their wicked deeds. And they're sitting in blindness and darkness and ignorance. But you have been so good to them.

You've given them every blessing that perhaps they might turn and seek you. But they have not sought you. We thank you then that you sought them.

That you sought us. If you had not sought us, we would still be far away. We would still be going our own way. Thank you that in your great mercy, in your great compassion, and pity, and love, you came and you sought us.

You sent your one and only son into this world. You sent him for us. Thank you that you are this great, evangelistic, missionary God that leaves his home and comes to a foreign and far away land.

Far different from his own place. Far from the praises of heaven. Thank you that you came and sought us. Lord Jesus, thank you for coming and meeting us.

And so we pray that you would now send your gospel to the ends of the earth. We pray that you would send the gospel so it comes powerfully to shake the nations, to bring down their pride, to bring down their rebellion, to bring them back, to powerfully call them to come to you.

We pray that you would send your gospel to the ends of the earth. We pray especially this week for Dave and Nedra Merrick as they'll be traveling to the far east.

We pray that you would protect them and that you would guard them. That the angel of the Lord would encamp around them and deliver them from all of their troubles.

We pray that you would bless their ministry. Bless it to the end of salvation. Lord Jesus, bless their ministry and through them build up your church in that country.

We pray for ourselves as well. Oh God, will you build the church here in our midst? Will you open the heavens and send the rain?

Will you rend the heavens and come down and set our hearts on fire that we might praise you? Lord, the mercy drops have fallen, but we do ask for the rain.

We thank you for what we have seen. We thank you for the salvation that has come here. But Lord, we ask that you would do more. That you would do more for your name's sake.

That you would do more for Jesus' sake. Jesus deserves more people to worship him, more hearts to love him, more lives given over and sacrificed to him.

So we don't ask so much for ourselves, but we ask on his behalf. And for him, he is worthy. So please, let him see the reward for which his heart went through so much pain and his life was made so miserable and sad upon the cross.

Will you please remember him? Remember his agony? Remember his pain? And so, bring salvation here. Bring and make worshipers in this place as you do around the world.

Lord, we are unworthy. And so we ask in Jesus' name. We ask that you would bless our brother as he comes and brings the word to us.

May it be a bright and shining light. We come in through your word. Stand forth. Stand forward and have dealings with us. And meet us.

And do us good. And again, we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's hear the word of God preached. Today is Mother's Day and therefore a day to honor our mothers.

But tomorrow is also a day to honor our mothers as are the rest of the days of this year and of the rest of your life.

As we heard, the commandment is honor your father and mother. The whole idea of mothers is God's idea, isn't it?

He thought of it, he planned it, and then he brought it to pass. And so we have God to thank for our mothers and for our mothers in particular.

The position of mothers, but our mother in particular. You didn't choose your mother. God chose her for you. Handpicked, hand-selected for you.

And so we owe God thanks for her. And that means then that we either honor or dishonor God when we honor or dishonor the mother that he gave to us.

So let us honor them today and tomorrow in the way that we speak to them and speak about them, the way we respond to their commands, children, and to their requests of us.

We honor God as we honor our mothers. Now we meet a lot of mothers in the Bible and I'd like to focus upon one special mother today and draw some lessons from her life.

She's the only mother who had no mother. Okay? She was the very first mother. The mother, the only mother who, as far as I know, was named by her husband from whose rib she was created on the sixth day of creation.

And so, of course, we refer to Eve. We read it in verse 20 of Genesis 3. Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living.

So we want to look at the first mother, Eve. Eve. The first thing we want to see is that she had a very large family. She's the mother of all the living.

That's the whole human family. Wow. It's grown to be quite a family, hasn't it, this family of mankind? Over seven billion sons and daughters of Eve living presently on the earth and many more billion.

Did I say billion or million? Seven billion living today and many more billions that have already died. A huge family tree with many branches and leaves, but it all comes down to this one mother, this first mother, Eve, the wife of the one man from whom God made every nation of men, Adam.

that means she's your mother. She's your first mother. Indeed, our children's catechism asked this question, who are your first parents?

And you're not to answer Bob and Mary or whoever your parents are, but whoever you are, whether you live in Asia, Africa, or America, the answer is the same for one and for all, isn't it?

That our first parents were Adam and Eve. we've all descended from them and we've all come then from this mother, the mother of all the living.

And that truth alone should go a long way in destroying the racial prejudice that exists within the human family because you see, every man is my brother and every woman is my sister.

We've all come from the same womb there's no superior race with some more advanced than others. No, it's evolution that feeds this racial prejudice.

Rather, the biblical account speaks of the common origin of the whole human family. We've all come from Eve, the mother of all the living.

Now, let's think a bit about Eve's family. It was huge even while she was living. Some of you mothers know something about large families and it can be quite a task to keep track of all of the birthdays and special days, not only of your children but of your grandchildren and some of you with your great-grandchildren.

Think of Eve's task. Before she died, she must have had hundreds, if not thousands, of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-great and going on and on.

And that's because people lived a long time back then. The genealogy in Genesis 5 tells us that Adam lived 930 years. Now, we're not sure about Eve since the genealogy traced the family through the male head, but we do know that the average lifespans of those recorded in Genesis 5 was 907, and at least today, women outlive men.

So, should we not think it unstrange if Eve would have lived to be 900 years old? The entire history of our nation is just 238 years.

She lived almost four times that length. And at age 130, Eve gave birth to their third son, Seth. And after Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters, presumably Eve as well.

In fact, Adam and perhaps Eve, it doesn't say, lived within 200 years of Noah when the whole human population minus eight was destroyed. So, after 900 years, Eve would have a lot of descendants.

That's putting it mildly, isn't it? Think of this. Eve never met a person she wasn't directly related to. They all came from her. They all came from her.

There were no strangers on the earth to Eve. Oh, you're so-and-so's son, grandson. grandson. Great, great, great, great, great, grandson.

No strangers. Everybody alive was her family. She was indeed the mother of all the living. And that's a lot of birthdays to keep straight.

She probably didn't invite the whole family home for Thanksgiving. The whole human race would have shown up. And as we think of her huge family, we're to think then of her large sphere of influence.

Because a mother's most powerful sphere of influence is her own family. There she wields an influence that no one else has. The first nine verses of Proverbs 31, we're familiar with the last part of Proverbs 31, being the godly woman, God-fearing woman.

But the first nine verses of Proverbs 31 are the wise sayings of a certain king Lemuel. They're the only words we have from his lips. They're words of warning against strong drink and ruinous women, instructions about speaking up and standing up for the rights of the poor and the needy.

And these words, where did they come from? They're not the words of some philosopher in king Lemuel's kingdom. They're not some advisor to his throne, but they are called the oracle that his mother taught him.

An oracle that his mother taught him. The sticky words of a mother heard many years ago that followed him through life, down through every twist and turn in his life, to every party that he ever went to, until finally as he's seated upon the throne of a kingdom, it's still her words that are gripping him, holding sway in his heart.

Those are the only words that we have from king Lemuel, an oracle that his mother taught him. Oh, my son, oh, son of my womb, oh, son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And so on and so forth. She goes, mothers, never underestimate the power that your words have upon your children.

And if you don't see the influence today, don't think that it's lost upon them. And pray that God would bring those truths to their hearts. And let the words that you speak to your children be the truths of God.

Be that living and active word that God's words are. So speak of God's precepts and promises and principles and warnings.

You may not have the whole population looking to you as mother or grandmother as Eve did, but mothers, you do have some eyes on you, some ears open to you, taking in your every word.

What are you doing with your influence? What are they hearing from your lips and seeing from your lives? A mother's influence is a powerful gift of God that can be exercised for good or for ill.

Don't neglect it. Prayerfully and faithfully make the most of it. So Eve's large family provided a large sphere of influence for her.

See your family is the same and use that influence for the glory of God. The second thing we learn about Eve is that she had a hand in bringing sin into her family.

Eve was the only perfect woman to have ever lived, but she didn't stay that way long, did she? She was never a perfect mother, for by the time she became a mother, she had already fallen into sin.

So, we find God having been so good to Eve. He created her in his own image. He showered his blessings upon her.

You know, she had a perfect husband. She's the only woman to have ever had a perfect husband. He didn't stay that way either, did he? But she had a perfect husband. She had a perfect environment.

There was nothing wrong in the garden, in the world that God set her in. nothing of sin, nothing of the curse. There was no unhappiness. And then she had, at the highest of all, perfect fellowship and friendship with God.

Unclouded. Perfect fellowship. He came and talked with her in the cool of the evening. It was heaven on earth, we say. Enough here in God's blessings to make her eternally grateful and loyal.

But with all those gifts of God, she still fell into sin and rebelled against her maker. The story is well known from chapter three. We had it read for us in full. And the curtain opens upon this scene and we find a cosmic struggle.

And on the one side is God, the maker of all things. And with him are Adam and Eve. And here they are.

They're enjoying fellowship with God. They're enjoying the blessings of God. And over here is the serpent, Satan. As Revelation calls him, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray.

And it really irritates Satan to see mankind praising, loving, worshiping God. That gets under his skin. as if God were such a good being.

So in an all-out attack to discredit God, he seeks to get Adam and Eve to join his side of the rebellion against God. And he chooses to start his attack on Eve.

He gets to Eve first and then through her to Adam and through Adam to the whole human race. And it all began with Eve listening to another voice rather than God's as her ultimate source of truth.

What is reality? What is real? And instead of listening to God, she now listens to the serpent and his interpretation of reality. And so Satan comes and he claims to be her friend.

and he infers that God is not nearly as good as she thinks him to be. And so it's an attack on the goodness of God. You remember what God said to the man when he put him in the garden?

You're free to eat from all the trees of the garden except the one in the middle of it. From that one you cannot eat. He puts the emphasis on the freeness, the liberality that Adam and Eve had in the garden.

Now when Satan comes to tempt Eve, where does he put the emphasis? He puts it on the one exception. In essence he's saying, do you mean Eve that you can't eat from all the trees that you want to?

Well, he has said that we can eat from any tree but not this one tree because if we eat from that tree we will surely die. You will not surely die. And now he puts his spin on reality.

You see the reason he says that Eve is because he doesn't want you to become like him. He's holding out on you. He doesn't want you to get knowledge and to know good and evil as he knows it and so you cannot really reach your potential Eve as long as you follow him.

But if you will follow me and eat from the tree, well then you will have knowledge and look how good it is and it's pleasing to the eye and healthy to eat, have a bite.

You see what he's doing, he's discrediting God. And Eve's thinking, you know, I never thought of it that way. Well, of course she hadn't.

She'd been listening to God. She knew who God was. It's a lie of the devil. But she listened, she considered, and eventually she bought into the lie. And she set herself up as the final arbiter and judge of what really is true and best for her.

Rather than taking God at his word, she exalts her own reason above God and chooses to step out from his commandment. Do you know that some false religions actually honor Eve for redeeming mankind from the oppressive rule of God?

God. Oh, they had it so bad in the garden, didn't they? Holy and happy. But Eve is the hero because she got us out from under the thumb of God.

We couldn't eat from that one tree and she showed him. Now we're free. We're free. She found the devil's promise.

Freedom was really a severe bondage, didn't she? And so does everyone else. Steps out of God's way into their own way. They immediately realize that what they thought was freedom is slavery. And what they thought was slavery was really true freedom.

And so she takes some of the forbidden fruit and she ate it and she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. And as scene one closes, we see God now standing alone on his side and Adam and Eve have joined the devil in the rebellion against God.

They took his side with the result that sin now separated them from God. Paradise was lost through sin. Friendship with God was forfeited.

Eternal life bartered away for a bite of fruit and independence from God. And the lesson here, mothers, is that you are constantly being bombarded with thinking contrary to God's word.

Who are you listening to? Who are you listening to? Young ladies, future mothers, who are you listening to? Not all the voices are voices of truth.

There are voices coming to you in our day saying that motherhood is slavery. If you would just cut yourself loose from tax of mothering, how free and happy you would be at last.

It's a lie from the same father of lies that told the first lie to Eve, our first mother. No, the truth is that we are most free and happy when we are doing what God created us to do, and he's given mothers the task of bringing up children.

And she is happiest as she's given herself to do what she was made and meant to do. Oh, but motherhood is such a waste of your life and of your talents.

You have such potential. You could be so much more if it wasn't for these kids. Another lie. Your greatest potential, mothers, your greatest potential and contribution to this world is as a mother with your family.

Mothers wield an incalculable power for good, and that good is seen for the good of her husband. First of all, the good that you do for your husband is the mother of the children that God has given you and him.

God made you to be his helper, and one of the chief ways you help him is by giving yourself to bring up your children so that behind every good man is a good woman, a good wife, and a good mother of his children.

And that's what we see in the rest of Proverbs 31. In that chapter, we learn of a man who is a leader and an official in the land with an important job. He's respected at the city gate.

And then we learn one of the secrets to his greatness. He's got a godly wife at home, doesn't he? She fears the Lord. She's a wife of noble character who wisely and diligently and happily attends to the needs of her family and her children.

She watches over the affairs of her household. She does not eat the bread of idleness. And that's why when this man leaves for work in the morning, he's able to throw himself into the business at hand without worrying about things back at home.

That's taken care of. He has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. And she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

He knows she'll be managing the home front well. And so he's free, you see. He's free to be all that he is at his job, at that which God has called him to do.

And no small part of his success there is due to having a godly wife back home who will not trade her role of mothering for anything.

So mothers, it is as mothers that you bring your husband much good. You bring her much good. You bring him much good. He's three times the man that he would be without you.

And that's the power of your influence for good as a mother. It reaches to your husband's performance at work. And that means you share in his accomplishments and you will share in his reward.

words. And that's why this woman is praised at the city gates because that's where he works. That's where her husband is and they hear about her good works from him and from others.

And her children arise and call her blessed because her husband also and he praises her. So husbands and children give her the praise that is due her. By mothering, she blesses her husband.

But then secondly, she does much good for her children as their mother. Some of you saw that Kevin Durant was just named the most valuable player in the national basketball, the NBA.

And in his acceptance speech of that coveted award, he gave high praise to all of his teammates, called them out, singled them out, but he reserved far higher praise for his mother.

And here's this six foot nine, twenty-five year old young man and through his tears, he's thanking his mother for the way she sacrificed for him and his brother.

Single mother with two children, she kept us off the street, she saw that we had food even if she didn't and on and on he goes. And in the end, he ends his tribute saying, you're the real MVP.

Who can describe the good that mothers, the influence of a mother upon her children in shaping their minds, their lives, day by day, like Timothy's mother and grandmother, Lois and Eunice, from infancy, teaching Timothy the holy scriptures, which are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

that's an influence with eternal results. What's the world offering you, women, that can top that? Eternal results. Teaching and modeling Christ's behavior, his laws, his morals, his gospel, sending sons and daughters into the world as well-sharpened arrows to make their contributions for the welfare of their fellow man and for the glory of Christ and his kingdom.

children who will go on to establish their own home and bring up their children, even as you have done with them and their children doing the same, sending into the world people who will bless others.

influence. You see, your influence as mother reaches way beyond your lifetime into future generations through your children and your children's children.

What does this world have to offer that compares to that? what does this world owe to our godly mothers who, instead of giving society a neglected child that turns out to be a criminal or a deadbeat dad, a lazy slugger to drain on society, gives to the world under the blessing of God, hard working, law abiding, neighbor loving, contributing citizens and lovers of God whose presence in the world is like salt in decaying meat and like light in the growing darkness and who use it to turn others to the light.

When rewards are being given out on the day of judgment, we read that the first will be last and the last will be first. And godly mothers will be among those who were considered last, perhaps, in this world's esteem, but whom the king of glory will give the highest honors for their faithful service as mothers.

as mothers. So mothers, whatever the world thinks of what you're doing, remember that God thinks it's important what you're doing. And do it as unto him with all your heart.

That you might hear well done, thou good and faithful servant from him. Eve did not hold tight to God's word. She listened to the voice of the serpent. Paul says of the Corinthians, I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, so your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

And so by her sin, she also had a hand in bringing sin to her husband. And through her husband, bringing it to all her children, the whole human race, teaching us that your powerful influence can be used for the good or for the ill of your family.

The third thing we see about Eve, and very briefly, is that she tasted the misery that sin brings. Eve tasted misery that sin brings. The way of the transgressor is hard, and Eve found it to be so.

For the first time in her life, she feels guilty and sows fig leaves to cover herself, and felt afraid of God when he came to meet with them, and ran from him and hid among the trees of the garden.

And on top of that, guilt that she bore, there was death to deal with. God had said when they eat, they would surely die, and the serpent said, no, you won't. But they did, and they immediately died spiritually.

There was a separation from God and them, and their soul and God. There was a separation. death began to work in her body that day, and one day caught up with her and separated body and soul in physical death.

They're chased out and banished from the garden lest she reach out her hand and eat from the tree of life and live forever. She had forfeited eternal life by her sin, and not just for her, but through Adam, death passed upon all men.

Romans 5.12. And then she finds misery introduced into her family life because God's punishment brought the curse into the primary sphere of activity for each Adam and Eve.

So Adam is to provide for his family through working the ground, so that's where the curse hits him. And now the ground will produce thorns and thistles, and it will be by the sweat of his brow that he will bring forth food for his family.

And Eve, who's to give herself to domestic sphere, finds it filled with thorns of its own. She could have had painless childbirth, but she forfeited it.

She will bring forth children in pain now. She could have had a perfect relationship with her husband, ongoingly, but she forfeited that. And she would now find within her fallen heart the desire to rule over him, that he would rule over her.

And not always in a sinless rule, sometimes oppressive. And so sin is the curse of every home, and Eve's now made to feel its stinging pain.

But her pains of childbirth were soon forgotten with the joy that she had in her two boys. And she watched them grow, and they had different interests. One liked the fields and growing things, and the other liked to be a shepherd and keeper of the animals.

And she had great joy in her. And then one day, her youngest son came up missing, and it broke her heart. But what was the knife twist when she finds that it was her older son that had murdered her younger son?

And she's made to live with that, that reality of sin and that pain that it brought into her heart. But what must have made the pain so unbearable was the remembrance that she had a hand in introducing sin into the human family.

If only I had obeyed God rather than the serpent, none of this would have happened. And she saw her own offspring grow increasingly violent, abusing and killing off one another.

She saw her husband toiling so painfully to provide for the family. And she knew all along that her own sin had a part. If only.

If only. Maybe there's some mothers here today who are carrying around the burden of guilt from past sins. And perhaps sins that have adversely affected your families.

And you're filled with regret. If only. If only. What do you do with your sins? Your regrets? Your guilt?

You can't go back and relive your past. You can't undo it. You can't make up for your sins against God. But you can find forgiveness for them. You can bury them once for all under the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ where they are remembered no more.

You can find grace to live with their ongoing consequences. And so live each day as you were meant to live for the good of others and the glory of God.

And you find all that you need in the same place where Eve found all that she needed to live with the painful consequences of her sin. And that leads us to the last point.

Eve was saved by the grace of God through the work of Jesus Christ. That's right. Eve, the mother of all the living, was saved by the grace of God through the work of Christ.

Do we have any evidence that Eve was saved from her sin? Do we have any evidence that she was redeemed from her fall? And the answer is yes. There's several proofs. Let me give you three.

First of all, it's hinted at in the provision of our Lord for her. Verse 21, we read it. Chapter 3, that the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Now you remember, they tried to clothe themselves. They tried to cover up their sin and guilt with the work of their own hands. But their own fig leaf clothing was unavailing.

So God himself provides the covering. God covers them. God clothes them. And he does it with garments of skin. Now kids, if he made the new clothes for Adam and Eve from the skins of animals, what had to happen to those animals?

They had to die, didn't they? Their skins were taken. Their lives were taken in order to clothe the guilty pair.

And in that, we have the first mention in the Bible of a bloody sacrifice of one life being given for another. of sacrificial, vicarious, one in the place of others.

At least pictured for us here, the only way of salvation, the only way we sinners can be clothed and accepted by our holy God.

And notice it's something God must do. He clothed them with coverings obtained through the death of another for them. And even so, it's Jesus Christ who must die in our place that he might cover us with his blood and righteousness.

A righteousness that hides all my transgressions from God. That righteousness, that righteous covering is only possible by Christ's death.

He must die for us to live. He must die for us to have such a covering. And Eve too would be saved only by the righteousness of Christ covering her.

But there's secondly, more evidence of her saving faith. And we find it in the words of her mouth. You know, Jesus says that the words of the mouth are an overflow from the heart.

What's in the heart comes out of the mouth. So words are telling things. They reveal our hearts. Well, we can see something of Eve's saving faith by listening to the words that she speaks.

And it's first seen at the birth of her firstborn son. Mothers, what do you say when you give birth to a baby? Listen to what Eve said, chapter 4 and verse 1. With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man.

With the help of the Lord. She acknowledged the Lord's role in her pregnancy and safe delivery of her child. She doesn't just say, I've brought forth a man, child.

I've brought forth a man. True enough. But she gives glory to God with the help of a man. With the help of God, I've brought forth a man. She recognizes the unseen helping hand of God in this birth and draws attention to it.

This speaks of a woman in touch with her unseen Lord. And she sees his blessing behind her blessings. And speaks of it. Speaks well of her God.

Blesses him for his gift to her. Sign of spiritual life in her heart. Then sometime after the death of Abel, we read in chapter 4 and verse 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.

And again, Eve traces her blessing back to the giving hand of God and to his goodness in replacing her loss. He hasn't left me in my loss, but he's replaced, a replacement for my loss in another son.

So she names him Seth. Probably means granted because God has granted me another child. And she glorifies God for his goodness.

She still speaks well of her God even after the loss of her son. Mothers, do you see God behind every blessing in your life?

Do you trace it back to his hand? That's what we see here. Isn't that a wonderful sign of spiritual life in any of us? To always be seeing God's hand. You don't see it, but it's there and we are meant to praise him for it.

Some trial hits you. Do you see it? It's from the Lord. Some blessing is enjoyed. Do you trace it back to its ultimate source? You've been helped in some accomplishment. Are you quick to open your mouth and acknowledge God's help and goodness in it?

There's the evidence of Eve's faith, but lastly, we have more than a hint of Eve's salvation. We have more than this evidence of her faith in her words. Her salvation is specifically promised her by God.

Well, that's amazing. Chapter 3 and verse 15. God's words to the servant spoken in front of Eve. It's the earliest gospel promise and it contains a promise for Eve's salvation.

God says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman. That's Eve. She's in the promise. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. So Eve's following the lies of the serpent Satan, placed her on his side, didn't it? in the rebellion.

She's standing with him. She's at enmity with God. That's who the enmity is with.

Eve and God. But now what does God say about his enemy Eve? He says, I'm going to place the enmity between the serpent and you.

What does that mean? That means he's going to win her back to his side. You see, there's only two sides in this cosmic struggle. There's Satan's side and there's God's side.

She was made here. She rebelled and joined Satan. Now God himself says, I'm going to put enmity between you. That means she's going to be back over here with God.

Serving God. And the enemy will be Satan. And notice it's something that God would do. Something he would accomplish for her. Salvation is of the Lord. It's all his work.

What love and mercy and grace for Eve. The serpent had succeeded in deceiving her. Eve had fallen for his lie and rebelled and forfeited eternal life. But God himself says, I'll do something to bring you back.

I'll put enmity between the serpent and you. And don't miss this. He would do this by one of Eve's own offspring.

Her offspring is further described in verse 15 as a singular male. He will crush your head, serpent, and you will strike his heel.

And so Eve's salvation would be ultimately brought about by her male descendant crushing the head of the serpent, Satan. and Eve placed her trust in this coming Savior and was saved from her sin through his work on the cross.

It's my joy to tell you on this Mother's Day that this son of Eve has come and he has crushed the serpent's head.

The Lord Jesus as to his human nature was a descendant of Eve. He was the seed of the woman, the promised seed of the woman. Yes, he's also the eternal son of God, but as to his human nature, he is the seed of the woman.

And at Calvary's cross, his own heel is bruised, but he crushes the head. The skull crushing work of Christ on the cross destroyed destroyed Satan's power.

By his death, he destroyed him who holds the power of death. That's the devil. And he freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. And he made atonement for the sins of the people.

It's at Calvary that his life was laid down for the salvation of his people. It's at Calvary that his blood was shed to provide a covering for the sins of Eve and all else who would trust in him.

It's at Calvary that sin is paid for in full. It's at Calvary that sin is blotted out and remembered no more.

It's at Calvary that sin is buried in the depths of the sea. It's at Calvary that they are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. It's at Calvary in Christ crucified we have the only doorway to heaven the only way back to the paradise of God.

It's Christ and him crucified the one who was foretold as soon as Adam and Eve had sinned that her seed would come and crush the serpent's head and his life and death have won eternal life for all for all who will repent and put their trust in him.

Eve looked forward to that coming savior. we look back to his coming which he's already accomplished and so Eve the mother of all the living who by her instrumentality brought sin into the whole world brought misery into the whole family of humanity was also by the grace of God instrumental in bringing the savior into the world.

like Mary Eve must have treasured up all these words and pondered them in her heart. Here was something to fill all the days of her long life with hope.

A savior is coming. He's coming for me. He's coming to put right what I and we by sin put wrong.

so the life story of Eve the mother of all the living is a story of the saving goodness of God the saving grace of God for a sinful rebel who had sided with Satan in rebellion against her kind maker and Eve's story is the story that involves us all because she brought sin into the whole world through Adam she brought Adam into sin and it was Adam who brought sin to all of his descendants plunged us into sin and guilt and misery but it's a story that need not end there because her male offspring Christ has come and he still offers his righteousness for our sin his eternal life for our death and this is where we bring our sin and our guilt and our regrets it's to Jesus Christ so mothers fathers children let us learn from the mother of all the living to put our trust in

Jesus Christ mankind's one and only savior let's sing of that wonderful grace of Jesus that reached to the likes of Eve and to many of us here and that grace is offered to you this morning if you would but take Jesus Christ as your lord and savior do it even as we sing number 702 let's pray we do praise you our father for the lord Jesus Christ and how when we had gone astray and rebelled against you and were under guilt and misery of sin you sent your own son born of a woman the seed of Eve to set us free from our sin to remove our sins from us to pay for them by his death that we might be covered by his blood and righteousness thank you for this gospel message from Eve the mother of the living may every mother here be found resting in him every father every child every person here bring us to trust in this savior send us on our way rejoicing in him we ask in Jesus name amen