“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” (Gen. 3:17)
I believe something may have been left out here, and I can only presume that it is not important to the narrative, or the Lord would have placed it in His word. What voice? What did Eve say to Adam? The Scriptures are clear, Eve was deceived by Satan, Adam sinned against God by his own free will, no coercion that we are told of moved him away from the Lord and towards his wife, but one must wonder what those words were that she spoke to him, and how they affected his decision.
Now, if you would, ponder this verse, “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” (Gen. 22:2)
The reason for God setting this task before Abraham was because he had placed Isaac in that part of his heart that is to be reserved for God alone, he put him in a place above God in his affections. I can say this in one of two ways, women have the ability to make men do that which man would not normally do, or men have the proclivity to respond to others in a way that is not pleasing to the Lord.
It would seem logical that Adam placed Eve in that same place in his heart that is to be God’s alone, and if this is true, it matters little what the words were that she spoke to him at that moment, she became more important than God to him. To put it mildly, the Lord does not take kindly to that. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exo. 20:3)
Solomon is another example of this failure that in one way or another all have fallen to. The man whom the Holy Spirit used to write the Book of Proverbs, the book of the wisdom of God has deemed fit to give us of Himself, fell prey to the voice of many different women, he harkened to the voice of his wife. David and Bathsheba, (2 Sam. 11-12) Judah and his daughter-in-law, (Gen. 38) the man caught in adultery with the woman that was going to be stoned, (John 8:3-11) all the men who had been married to the woman that Jesus spoke to at the well of Jacob. (John 4) Throughout history men have harkened to the voice of something or someone greater than the voice of God.
There is always punishment for this serious offence, you may call it chastisement if you wish, and in nearly every instance, I would dare to say all, someone else is affected adversely, our sins cause some form of adverse action upon not only those we hold dear, but many others at times.
One of the stipulations that the Lord has placed upon those who desire to lead the flock, to be a pastor, is that if they are married they are to be the husband of only one wife, and be completely faithful to her, but whether that man is married or not, whether he leads a congregation or is a simple man of God who desires only that God be glorified in his life, no one, nothing is to be placed before the Lord in that person’s life.
God will take second place to nothing of His creation, and He alone is Sovereign, He has every right to demand this of all His creation. Adam made a decision that altered the entire course of the history of not only all mankind, but of an entire planet, and I believe that the Lord forgave him. If you have placed anyone or anything in that place in your heart that is to be reserved for the Most High, and repent of it, it is a small matter for Him to forgive you.
