Sermon Central
-
The First Gospel
Contributed by Clark Tanner on Jan 25, 2001 (message contributor)
Summary: A devotion for students of Genesis
We find God’s first proclamation of a Messiah, a Christ, a Savior, in Genesis 3:15.
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel”
In this very early portion of scripture we see, of course, the fall of man through the deceit of Satan.
“Although man was made in God’s image and given dominion over all other forms of created life on earth, Satan perverted that by assuming in the serpent, a position of full equality with man by speaking. So as a complete reversal of that action, God, in His curse of the serpent, dooms it to a prone position, declaring that it will eat dust from now on. We see this (eating of dust) used later in scripture as a symbol of utter defeat.”
“Let the nomads of the desert bow before him; and his enemies lick the dust”
“...They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of your feet.”
“They will lick the dust like a serpent, like reptiles of the earth.”
And specifically of Satan in Isaiah 65:25
“The dust shall be the serpent’s food.”
But God did not stop there, because it is not enough to curse the serpent.
The wages of sin is death. To the transgressor against God, this can only mean eternal separation from Him, because God cannot condone or tolerate sin.
Let the reader be assured, we cannot put our sin on Satan’s head. “The devil made me do it” is a worldly, humanistic line of thought, and is denied again and again by God’s Word. It’s not enough to curse the serpent!
We can hope to be good enough on our own. We can put away bad habits, strive to live peacefully with all men and wrong no one intentionally. We can be masters at fighting temptations and live a quiet, peaceful, honest, forthright existence; but the wages of sin is death. It is not enough to curse the serpent.
We know the only provision for sin is the shed blood of Christ, and if we don’t put our faith and trust there, we will spend eternity separated from God, and there’s nothing beyond the cross of Christ that even God can do to save us. It is His only provision, but it is enough. If we fail to believe in Him, the Bible says we are hopelessly lost forever.
Deceit was Satan’s lot - but sin was man’s and sin cannot go unpunished. So, God goes on to pronounce the curse that has come on all creation through that sin. But right in the middle of it, is the glorious promise of one who would redeem men from sin and crush the serpent’s head. I am referring of course, to Genesis 3:15.
Look now with me at 1 John 3:8
“The one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
And we know that at the cross of Calvary where God was His weakest (if we can even justly use that word here), at the moment when all who believed on Christ stood in utter defeat, while cruel men drove spikes through the hands that had healed limbs and raised the dead, ... Satan’s head (power) was crushed and as is ever the case, God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 was translated from prophecy to history precisely, to the letter as He had declared!
“And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
“Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
Hebrews 2:14,15
“And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
OUR GOD REIGNS!
