Genesis 3:19

Genesis 3:19

(with Psalms 16:6)

Notice:

I. The necessity of toil, of hard, stern, constant strain, is at first connected with transgression. Like death, it is the child of sin. This broad fact of human experience is symbolised in the narrative of the expulsion from Eden, and the sentence on earth as well as on man (Genesis 3:17). There is blessing in toil to him who can get up into the higher regions and see how out of the very extremity of human pain and endurance God can bring forth fruits which shall be rich and fair throughout eternity. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, of toil or suffering which is other than blessed to the man who believes.

II. Consider what is the fundamental principle of this ordinance of toil. (1) It is ordained to restore man to a true and living relation with the whole system of things around him. Transgression placed him in a false relation to everything within and around him to the constitution of his own nature, to the world, to man, and to God. He thought to be master in this world: God made him serve with a hard service, to break his strong, imperious will to obedience again. Toil is the beginning of obedience; it is a submission to the Divine law. On this sentence of labour God bases all His culture of our spirits; by this He keeps alive the desire and the hope of deliverance. (2) Toil is ordained to draw forth the full unfolding of the whole power and possibility of man's being, with a view to the system of things before him, the world of his eternal citizenship, his perfect and developed life. Be sure that it is the last strain that drags out the most precious fibre of faculty, or trains the organs to the keenest perception, the most complete expansion, the most perfect preparation for the higher work and joy of life.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 321.

Genesis 3:19

I. Men know not that they shall die, even though they confess it with their lips almost daily. If we consider what death is, we see that men who know its approach will act in all things as in the fear of it. There is no more startling paradox in the wonders of our nature than this, that men in general are thoughtless about death. When our own turn comes and there is no escape, then, for the first time, we really believe in death.

II. Death is a fearful thing, because of the great change that it implies in all our being. Life is that power by which we act and think and love and intend and hope. And suppose that all our energies have been wasted on things that cannot follow us into the grave, then how can we conceive of any life at all beyond this? When we know that we must die, we feel about for something in us that shall not perish, some thread of continuity to knit our present and future life into one; and if we have never lived for God, never realised the difference between treasures of earth and treasures of heaven, we find nothing that shall assure us of that other life. We start back in horror from a grave so dark and so profound.

III. If these two terrors were all, some at least would not fear to die, would even court death as a repose. But there is yet another terror. Death means judgment. To die is to meet God. You tremble because you stand before a Judge of infinite power, whose wrath no man can resist; before a Judge of infinite wisdom, who shall call back your acts out of the distant past and lay bare the secret thoughts of your spirit.

IV. Accept the salvation purchased for you with Christ's passion, then death cannot come suddenly upon you, for the thought of it will have sobered all your days. The day of account will still be terrible, but the belief that you are reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus will sustain you.

Archbishop Thomson, Life in the Light of God's Word,p. 25.

References: Genesis 3:19. H. Alford, Sermons,p. 228; Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,vol. v., p. 32; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year,2nd series, vol i., p. 137; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine(1887), p. 487. Genesis 3:20. L. D. Bevan, Christ and the Age,p. 227.