Conquering the Curse
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
The Bible opens in chapter one, and everything is perfect. God has created a perfect world. We get to chapter three, and satan comes in and he convinces Eve to sin and now the world is cursed. If anyone doesn’t believe that this world is cursed they have lived the life that I’ve lived! The reality is that this world is cursed, and it is cursed, not by God, but by the effect of sin.
After Adam and Eve fall, God, with a broken heart, delivers a curse that comes from sin and its effects.
When we get to the part about the curse, we just move on down to the curse of men and women. When we get there, we have a tendency to whine about it and focus on the effect of the curse.
In our life, we still do the same thing. We focus on the effect of our sin, but we rarely get broken over sin itself. This is because we have a mentality that sin only affects us, and that’s not true. When we sin, we affect our relationship with God.
When we get into verses 14-15 of chapter 3, we see a part of the curse that we are unfamiliar with personally. We see the curse that God delivered to the snake, the curse that God delivered to satan, and in the curse of satan, we see God’s promise of salvation.
I. The Serpent’s Curse
I. The Serpent’s Curse
So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
God literally cursed snakes. They are now the reminder and representative of sin.
A. Directed
A. Directed
“You are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field.”
Twice, God uses “more than”. What God is conveying is that the snake is cursed beyond what the other animals were. The world suffered death, but the snake has a unique curse that is personal to it. This curse was directed at the serpent.
The curse of sin brings personal accountability.
Have you ever heard the story of “everybody, somebody, anybody, and nobody?” Everybody blamed somebody, who would blame anybody, and eventually nobody took the blame. Such is the case of the man or woman trapped in personal sin. They want to blame somebody, anybody, so that they don’t have to take the blame. But judgement for sin is personal.
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.
The curse of sin brings personal condemnation.
I cannot, your parents cannot, society cannot, and your best friend cannot answer for your sins. You and you alone will stand before God and will answer for sin.
B. Diminishing
B. Diminishing
“On your belly you shall go”
The serpent at one time had legs. But when sin got involved, the status of the serpent was diminished. It crawls on its belly. It doesn’t walk, it slithers.
When we sin and stand before God, we won’t have a leg to stand on.
Because we are in sin, our status before God diminished to a status of enmity.
Do we have any snake lovers in here? The majority of the world doesn’t like snakes, and it is for the very reason that they have a diminished status. The word enmity means to be hostile towards. And just as the world is hostile towards snakes, the world is also hostile towards God, and God is hostile towards sin.
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
At one time the creation was perfect in its relationship with God, but because of sin, the people of the world are enemies with God. Our status has been diminished from friends of God to enemies of God.
C. Defeating
C. Defeating
“And you shall eat dust”
Snakes don’t actually eat dust! But this is symbolic. In the Bible, dust represents a few things when it comes to sin.
Mortality (from dust you came…); **Humiliation; Contempt (disgust // people would “cast dust” at people they were cursing); Judgement (shaking off the dust); Worthlessness; **Defeat.
As dust means humiliation, we know that sin is humiliating.
When Adam and Eve sinned…they hid!
For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
People often refuse to come to the Lord because they are too ashamed to admit they are wrong or in sin.
To repent means to agree with God about your personal sin. In order to agree with God, we have to admit that He is totally right and that we are totally wrong. Repentance and walking the aisle of the church is in some way humiliating, because you are admitting openly that you are personally accountable for sin, diminished in your own heart and mind because you are an enemy of God, and you are admitting defeat saying, “I am giving up Lord! I am coming in full surrender!”
As dust symbolizes defeat, to remain in sin means defeat.
The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; They shall put their hand over their mouth; Their ears shall be deaf.
They shall lick the dust like a serpent; They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth. They shall be afraid of the Lord our God, And shall fear because of You.
Those who dwell in the wilderness will bow before Him, And His enemies will lick the dust.
When the Bible says that the serpent will eat dust, it means that all who dwell and remain in their sins will be defeated by God, just as sin will be defeated.
D. Disastrous
D. Disastrous
“All the days of your life”
When the serpent was cursed, it became the poster child for the effects of sin. Even when Jesus creates and rules over the new heaven and new earth, the serpent will still eat dust, and will still serve as a reminder of sin.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, The lion shall eat straw like the ox, And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
When a person dies in sin, they will have an eternal consequence.
This is the place that we call Hell. It is a real place, with real suffering, and it is eternal.
What earthly sacrifice to follow Jesus that could be worse than Hell? What sin and what habit and what shame is worth an eternity of death? There isn’t one. Hell is a place of ultimate death, shame, judgement, and destruction. And worst of all, it lasts for an eternity.
The Serpent’s curse helps us to see sin. That sin is directed (personal); diminishing (makes us enemies of God); defeating (we will be defeated by God); and disastrous (it’s effects are eternal).
II. Satan’s Curse
II. Satan’s Curse
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed;
Satan believed he had robbed God of His most prized possession. Satan wanted heaven, and when he couldn’t have heaven, he tried to take earth and man.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
God’s sovereignty cannot be toppled.
Sovereignty means “Possessing ultimate authority and power with complete independence of action.”
To simplify it, sovereignty means to have complete power without limits. That’s why only God is truly sovereign.
Satan, believing he had won, is now cursed.
A. Friend Turned Foe
A. Friend Turned Foe
“I will put enmity”
Enmity means hostile.
So where satan thought that he was going to gain more allies, God overrules and says that He is going to make this new relationship a relationship of enmity.
To be a friend of the world, is to be an enemy of God. To be a friend of God is to be an enemy of satan. When a person goes from darkness to light, they go from being a tool of satan to being someone that is enlisted in the army of God. And when we are in God’s army, we are at war with satan and we have to walk with wisdom.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Once you enter into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the devil will stop at nothing to defeat you. How does someone enter into this saving relationship? - Reconciliation
Reconciliation is a shift in relationship or attitude from enmity to peace.
It is a relational term. At one time, we were in a relationship of enmity with God, but through the reconciliation of Jesus, we can be at peace with God.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
When satan thought he had a friend, God overruled! He reconciled us through Jesus.
B. Victory Turned Sour
B. Victory Turned Sour
“Between you and the woman”
Satan wanted to take Adam and Eve as his trophy, but God gave him sour grapes instead.
Satan believed that by taking humanity, he could defeat God and gain a victory, but now God is going to take the victory that satan won and God is going to take the victory back through humanity.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
God sent Jesus to this earth to be a revelation of Him. So that we can know God, and so that we can be in right relationship with God.
And when satan thought he might take the victory by taking on the form of a serpent and taking man as his trophy, God took on the form of a man so that men could gain victory over satan.
The tool that satan tried to defeat God with is the tool that God used to defeat satan.
C. Power Turned Over
C. Power Turned Over
“between your seed and her Seed”
This is the promise of Jesus. Satan knew that a savior would come from the seed of Eve, and all throughout the history of the Bible he tries to stop it.
In ch. 4, we see Cain murder Abel. Abel was replaced by Seth and the sons of Seth are called the sons of God. We see that Pharoah tried to kill the Hebrew boys. Herod tried to kill Jesus. Satan today still blinds the minds of people so that they don’t follow the Lord.
What God is saying to satan here is, “You’re finished! Because you took power by the woman, I will take your power by the woman.”
The first part of satan’s curse is this: what you used to cause sin, I will use to bring life…you will be defeated.
III. The Saving Curse
III. The Saving Curse
And between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
This is called the protoevangelium
Protoevangelium means first (proto) gospel (evangelium).
This is the first mention of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Delivered as part of the curse. From the fall of the world, every person has had access to the gospel of Jesus Christ because the heart of God is a heart of reconciliation.
God desires a right relationship with everyone here, and everyone in the world.
‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’
In this protoevangelium, in this “first gospel”, we see the promised savior of the world.
A. His Life
A. His Life
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.”
Satan knew that Jesus would come in flesh, he knew that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, and he knew that he could stop at nothing to prevent that little baby boy from being born. Satan, for all of time, is still trying to win the victory over God and its a losing battle!
1. Born of a Virgin
1. Born of a Virgin
This means that he was born without a sin nature. He didn’t come from man, He came from woman, placed there by God, and so Jesus was never trapped by sin like we are trapped by sin.
What does that mean?
Because Adam committed sin, everyone that comes from Adam cannot help but to commit sin. This is the word depravity.
Depravity means to be totally corrupted by sin.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
What is sin?
Sin is a failure to do what God has said to do.
There was Adam. Commanded by God to abstain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. He failed to do that and now is totally corrupted by sin. Everyone who has come from Adam is trapped in sin.
So, for Jesus to be a savior, He couldn’t come from Adam, He had to come from God. That’s why He delivered through the womb of the virgin Mary.
2. Sinless
2. Sinless
Because Jesus was born of a Virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit of God, He was not corrupt, but He was sinless.
This means that Jesus was in perfect submission to God’s will. He never disobeyed or failed to do what God asked Him to do.
Jesus had to be perfect to satisfy the requirements of God.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
In the Old Testament, to have your sin covered and forgiven, you had to sacrifice a spotless lamb.
The Passover and the 10th Plague
The congregation of Israel is enslaved to the nation Egypt. God has commanded Pharoah to let the people go, and Pharoah keeps them there time and time again. God sends 10 plagues to Egypt to show His power, and the tenth plague is the death of the firstborn.
When the Angel of death was sent to administer the plague of death, there was one way to have the angel of death pass over you. It was to take the blood of a little lamb and paint it on the door posts and lintel of the house…but it couldn’t be just any lamb…
Your lamb shall be without blemish
God would not be satisfied with the sacrifice of something that was sick, lame, or blind.
God will not be satisfied with something marred by sin.
It was necessary for Jesus to be sinless because He was sufficient sacrifice to please God.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him
It pleased the Lord because Jesus was a worthy sacrifice.
In his life, He was born of a virgin, sinless and spotless in every way.
B. His Death
B. His Death
“He shall bruise your head”
Satan would try and kill Jesus time and time again, and when he finally succeeds, he thinks he’s done something!
But when Jesus died, what He did was He crushed Satan under His feet.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus died as a righteous man. He paid the penalty of sin for everyone.
What this means is that all the shame and defeat of sin was placed on the shoulders of Jesus, and He took our punishment when He died.
When Jesus died on the cross, He purchased the world back from sin.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That is, when we sin, we earn death. The wage (payment) for sin is death. But accepting the payment of Jesus makes it to where our debt to God has been paid in full.
So, when the Bible says that Jesus would bruise the head of satan, God was declaring right then and there that Jesus would crush the reign of satan on the earth.
C. His Resurrection
C. His Resurrection
“You shall bruise His heel”
During the darkest day in history, when all hope seemed lost and it seemed satan had won…Jesus came back from the dead!
The head of the serpent crushed, the perfect lamb of God slain for the sin of the world…back from the dead, with nothing but a bruised heel.
So, here in these verses, we see sin, we see satan, and we see salvation.
Conclusion
Conclusion
What must a man do to be saved?
What must a man do to be saved?
Nothing, Jesus has already paid it all!
All you have to do today is surrender to Jesus. Come with the white flag and ask the Lord to save you.
How Should the Christian Use this?
How Should the Christian Use this?
It ought to encourage you! No matter what the effect of the curse is, you have already conquered the curse in Jesus. Don’t get so bogged down in the troubles of life that you forget that satan has been crushed and the curse has been conquered.
Do you need to be saved today?
Do you need to be saved today?
