Many years ago, when I was a
younger man, over 30 years ago, I wrote a letter to Dr. James Montgomery Boyce and asked
him if he would come to my tiny little church in Arkansas and
to preach. And to my utter amazement and
astonishment, the letter came. It had 10th Presbyterian on the
envelope. My secretary and two pastors
came running into my office with the letter from 10th Presbyterian
Church. And I really could not allow
myself to believe that this is actually a letter from 10th Presbyterian. I thought that they had gone
to Kinko's and had stationery printed just to see how long
I would go along with the gag. But as I opened it and read it,
I realized that the great preacher of this pulpit from years past
would be coming to preach the word of God in my pulpit. And
he came not just for a day, but for an entire week. And he preached
Romans one through four. I had lunch with him every day,
had dinner, had him over in my home. It was one of the great
moments of my entire life. And after he returned to Philadelphia,
maybe two days later, I wrote him another letter. and invited
him back to come. And he agreed to come, and he
preached Romans 5 through 8 over the course of a week. And it
was one of the most meaningful experiences to me as a young
preacher. Shortly after that, I came to
Philadelphia and sat where you are seated for a Sunday evening
service as he was in Romans chapter 11. And it was really one of
the great moments of my life. And so to be standing here in
this hallowed pulpit is a very special thing for me, and I trust
that God will use this time very strategically. Also, when it
was time for me to pursue a doctor of ministry program, I had just
read a book called The Holiness of God, and it so lit up my heart. And I saw that he was a professor.
And I thought, wherever this man, R.C. Sproul, is teaching,
that is where I want to pursue my doctorate. If he had been
teaching on the moon, I would have bought a ticket on a rocket
ship, and I would have gone to the moon. And I went to Reform
Theological Seminary where he was teaching, and my life was
dramatically impacted. that I would ever be standing
here now with lig and ear and now writing all of Dr. Sproul's
sermons is such a blessing for this man. No, I feel like all the lines
of really my life in some ways are being intersected tonight,
and I am humbly, deeply humbled tonight to be able to stand before
you and to bring the Word of God. I'm also grateful for my
wife, Anne, to be here and to be seated next to Linda Boyce,
who has become a dear friend to us. I invite you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis. If you have
trouble, go to the table of contents and turn right. Genesis chapter 2, and tonight
as we begin this conference on the truth of the cross, we want
to begin our focus with a message entitled, Blessing and Cursing. I want to begin by reading what
will be the initial part of our text tonight, Genesis chapter
2. I want to begin reading in verse
7. Then the Lord God formed man
of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life. and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden
toward the east in Eden, and there he placed the man whom
he had formed. Out of the ground, the Lord God
caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and
good for the food. The tree of life also in the
midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil." Verse 15, then the Lord God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep
it. The Lord God commanded the man
saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely. But from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you
eat from it, you will surely die." Chapter 3, verse 6. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and
that the tree was desirable to make one wise, She took from
his fruit and ate. And she gave also to her husband
with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them
were opened and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. From the dawn of human history,
God has set forth before man blessing and cursing, life and
death. And every man and every woman
must choose. Will it be life? Will it be death? Will it be blessing? Will it
be cursing? According to the law that God
has prescribed. God's blessing is His divine
favor upon man, the fullness of His abundant mercy and grace
lavished upon man. As man enters into a personal
relationship with the living God, having been made in the
image of God, and in this relationship being face to face with God,
and the smile of God's countenance shining and beaming upon man
and man entering into the fullness of abundant life and eternal
life. That is the blessing of God. It is to know God. It is to look
upon the smile of his countenance and to find acceptance with holy
God. Cursing, on the other hand, is
the disfavor of God. It is the judgment of God. It
is the condemnation of God upon man. It is God turning His face
away from man, and there being no personal relationship with
God. It is man being abandoned by
God, man being forsaken by God. Blessing and cursing are set
before every man and every woman, and every person must choose,
will they go God's way or will they go their own way? And if
they go God's way, they will have God's favor and God's blessing. But if they go their own way,
they will have God's cursing upon them. There is no middle
ground. There is no place of neutrality
between the two. These two are polar opposites. They could not be any more in
contradistinction. There is not a third position. There is not a fourth or a fifth
place where man may be. It is either under the blessing
of God or it is under the cursing of God. In the time that we have
tonight, I want us to look in three areas in the scripture
and to see blessing and cursing, blessing and cursing, and to
give you an indication where we're headed tonight. I want
you to see it first in the garden, and then second in the law at
Mount Sinai, and then third at the cross at Calvary. Let's begin now in this passage
that I have read for us tonight, and I want you to note with me
first, blessing and cursing in the garden. Beginning in chapter
2 in verse 7, which I have already read, we note that the Lord God
formed man of dust from the ground. God spoke everything else into
existence by the Word of His power. He said, let there be
light, and there was light. But as God comes to create man,
God becomes intimately involved, personally, as with his own hands
now, he formed man, shaped man, like a potter with the clay,
out of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and man became a living being. Man was made in the very
image of God, created to have fellowship with God and to know
God. And in verse 8, the Lord God
planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed
the man whom he had formed. God placed man in a paradise,
in a garden that was so lush and beautiful, it was the goodness
of God poured out upon him. And out of the ground the Lord
God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight
and good for food. The abundant goodness of God
upon man. The tree of life also in the
midst of the garden. And this tree would sustain Adam. It would satisfy Adam. It would strengthen Adam. And
there was also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so in verse 15 we read that
the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden
to cultivate it and to keep it. And this was also God's goodness
towards man who is made in the image of God, that he might work,
that his life might have meaning and significance. There would
be a dignity about his work as he would oversee the creation
of God on God's behalf. But in verse 16, we now read
that God chose. God commanded the man, saying,
from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. This was a test. This was a covenant
arrangement. This was a contractual arrangement
between God and between man, a coven of works, if you will,
that if man will obey God, it will lead to blessing and to
goodness. But if man will break this covenant,
if man will choose a path of disobedience, that there will
be enormous consequences. And we read that at the end of
verse 17. In the day, please note, not
in the year, or in the month, or in the year, or the decade,
or the century, but in the day that you eat from it and violate
this arrangement that God has made with man, God said you will
surely die. And this was the choice, blessing
or cursing. Obey the covenant, disobey the
arrangement. And so you know what happened
as we come to chapter 3. Now the serpent, craftier than
any beast of the field, slithered his way onto the page, or onto
the stage of human history, and lured the woman who would lure
the man. And we read in verse 6, when
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make
one wise, she took from its fruit and ate in direct, deliberate,
defiant, rebellious, disobedience against Almighty God. And God
had said, in the day that you eat of this fruit, you will die. And she gave also to her husband
with her, and he ate, and death entered. the human race. There was immediate spiritual
death. There was a separation, a fracture
in their face-to-face relationship. And now Adam and Eve suffered
spiritual death, and with that came an emotional dying. And at that very moment, physical
death entered the human race. They did not immediately die,
but death began its decaying process in Adam and Eve that
very day. And so we read in verse 14 that
because this arrangement between God and man has now been violated,
God must now bring His cursing upon man. And we read in verse
14, beginning with the serpent, because you have done this, cursed
are you more than all cattle. In verse 15, and I will put enmity
between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. Verse 16, to the woman he said,
I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you
will bring forth children. And your desire will be for your
husband. That's not a good desire. It
is a desire to be an aggressive wife who will seek to dominate
her husband. And the curse for the man will
become to become a passive man. and she an aggressive woman,
a total reversal of the roles. And then in verse 17, he said
to Adam, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil, you
will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles.
Verse 19, by the sweat of your face, you will eat bread till
you return to the ground. There is the eventual physical
death. You will return to the ground
from which God has formed you, and you will be in a dying process
for the rest of your life. And so we read in verse 23, the
Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden. Verse 24, so
he, God, drove the man out, cursing because man chose
to disobey God. And yet, in the midst of all
of this, we see a contractual agreement of grace, of blessing,
a covenant of grace. we see at the end of verse 15.
Shining through this dark cloud are the bright rays of God's
saving grace. Brighter than 10,000 suns in
the sky above, bursting through the dark clouds of His cursing. And we read, He, referring to
the seed of the woman, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of Man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what theologians call
the Proto-Evangelion. the first mention of the gospel
in the Bible. He shall bruise you on the head,
and you will bruise Him on the heel. It is metaphorical language
that one day at the cross, the seed of the woman, the seed of
Abraham, the seed of David, the mighty Messiah The Lord Jesus
Christ will come, and though Satan will bruise him on the
heel as he will conspire behind the scenes to bring about this
chant, crucify him, crucify him, yet in that death, the Lord Jesus
Christ will wield a fatal blow to the devil and crush him in
the head. That blessing may come. to those who believe upon Him. From the very outset of human
history, at the dawn of civilization, blessing, cursing, choose you
this day whom you will serve. And when Adam sinned, his sin
was imputed to the entire human race. And his sin nature has
been transmitted generation by generation to the entire human
race. And we have been born with this
spiritual death in us. I want you to come now to the
book of Deuteronomy. And we have seen not only blessing
and cursing in the garden, but I want you to note now, secondly,
blessing and cursing in the law. And as we come to the book of
Deuteronomy, which is the second issuing of the law, the second
giving of the law, we see again the same offer from God, blessing
or cursing. In Deuteronomy 5, beginning in
verse 6, we see in the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments,
Deuteronomy 5, verse 6, the giving of the law in an ancient covenant
form. In verse 5, we see the prologue
Verse 6, rather, the prologue to this covenant in which the
issuer of the covenant identifies himself to those who will receive
the covenant. In verse six, I am the Lord,
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery. That is the prologue. And now
the stipulations of the covenant. And beginning in verse seven
and extending through verse 21, we have now the moral law of
God, the timeless moral law of God. This is the tip of the arrow
of the law that is given at Sinai. Verse 7, you shall have no other
gods before me. You shall not make for yourself
an idol. And verse 8, verse 9, you shall
not worship them or serve them. Verse 11, you shall not take
the name of the Lord your God in vain. Verse 12, observe the
Sabbath to keep it holy. And verse 16, honor your father
and mother. Verse 17, and following, you
shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, et cetera. These are the terms. These are
the requirements. These are the stipulations of
the covenant. Now, I want you to come to Deuteronomy
28, and I want you to see now, blessing or cursing, depending
upon will you choose to obey God, or will you go your own
way? And in Deuteronomy chapter 8,
we now read, in the opening verses, God will
set before His people the promise of blessing if they will choose
to obey the covenant. So note, Deuteronomy 28 verse
1, now it shall be if Here is the condition, if you
diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all
His commandments which I commanded you today, the Lord God will
set you high above all nations of the earth. Verse 2, all these
blessings, all these blessings will come upon you. and overtake
you if you obey the Lord your God. Verse three, blessed shall
you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.
Verse four, blessed shall be the offspring of your body. Verse
five, blessed shall be your basket. Verse six, blessed shall be you
when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. Verse eight, the Lord will command
blessing upon you. Verse 1 says, if you will diligently
obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments. Keep your finger right here and
turn back to Numbers chapter 6. Just keep your finger there
in Deuteronomy 28. And I want you to turn back to
the Aaronic benediction, the Aaronic blessing. And in Numbers
Chapter 6 and in verse 22, this is an expression of this same
blessing from God as Aaron will now mediate this blessing as
the priest to the people. Numbers 6 and verse 22, then
the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron. and to his sons,
saying, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall
say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you The Lord – watch
this – make His face shine upon you. In other words, for God
not to be turned away from man, but for God to be turned toward
man and His face to shine with mercy and blessing upon man as
man and God enter into an intimate, personal relationship. Verse
25, the Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious
to you. The Lord lift up His countenance
on you, the countenance of His face. The idea is the smile of
God upon man as man is in this intimate face-to-face position
of blessing before God. and He will give you peace. If you will keep His commandments,
He will bless you. But come back to Deuteronomy
28. Back to Deuteronomy 28. But in verse 15, here is the
other side of this covenant. Verse 15, but it shall come about,
if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe, to do, watch
this, all, all His commandments, not some
of them, not a lot of them, not most of them, you must do all
His commandments. And Jesus will tell us in Matthew
5, they must be kept from the heart and not just the outward
deed. You must observe all His commandments
and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake
you." Verse 16, "'Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed
shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket.'"
Verse 18, "'Cursed shall be the offspring of your body.'" Verse
19, "'Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall
you be when you go out. The Lord will send upon you curses.'"
And the rest of this chapter, it is sobering. that if you disobey God, the
cursings of God will be upon you. Blessing, cursing, life,
death. But the problem is, no one in
Israel, and none of us here tonight, can keep all the commandments
of God, can we? We need an arrangement of grace.
We need an arrangement of mercy. And God will not lower the standard.
And God will not violate His own covenant. Turn back to Leviticus just for
a moment, and I want you to see this grace, Leviticus 16, this
grace and mercy of God that comes shining through the law. In the law there is blessing
and there is cursing, but also in the law, just as there was
in Genesis 3 in the garden, there is the promise of a coming substitute
who will bear the curse for his people. And by his bearing that
curse, he will become the mediator of blessing for his people. He will be a substitute. He will
be a sacrifice. He will be one who will receive
the transfer of sin to himself. And this was all foreshadowed
in Leviticus chapter 16, which is the day of atonement. once
a year in which the high priest was to take two goats. One was
to be slain, and he was to take the blood of a slain animal,
and to take the blood, and to sprinkle the blood on the mercy
seat. And it was an illustration, it
was a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God who would shed His blood
upon Calvary's cross. and make the only and perfect
covering for our sins. For we have been redeemed, not
with silver or gold inherited from our futile way of life,
but of a lamb precious and blameless, the Lamb of God. But the other
lamb, instead of it being slain, it
was to be released into the wilderness. It was the scapegoat. And the
priest, the high priest, would symbolically lay both hands upon
the scapegoat. And it symbolized the transferring
of sin, the sin of the people, to an innocent scapegoat. And the scapegoat would then
be released into the wilderness. And it was the picture of the
coming of Christ, who would be the Lamb of God, who would take
away the sins of His people. And in so doing, He would be
forsaken by God. He would be abandoned by God. And there would be a severance
in their face-to-face relationship, which they have enjoyed from
all eternity past. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
would hang upon that cross one day, there would be a breach
in their fellowship between the Father and the Son, as Christ
would be forsaken and abandoned by the Father. And the Lord Jesus
Christ would cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? All of this was but a dress rehearsal
for Calvary, and the blessings and the cursings that one day
would come in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon Golgotha. Come with me now to our final
passage. Come with me now to Galatians
chapter 3. We have seen blessing and cursing,
number one, in the garden. We have seen blessing and cursing,
number two, in the law, and now I want you to see blessing and
cursing, number three, in the cross. And as we come to Galatians
chapter three, I want to begin reading in verse ten. Galatians three and verse ten,
and I want you to see the full and final realization of blessing
and cursing from God. Galatians 3 verse 10, for as many as are of the works
of the law are under a curse. Does that word sound familiar?
In fact, later in verse 10, he will say, cursed is everyone. In verse 13, Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law, having become a curse. Cursed
is everyone who hangs on a tree. Five times in these few verses,
we will see the curse. And in verse 14, we will see
the blessing. in order that in Christ Jesus
the blessing of Abraham might come. Here at Calvary's cross,
God is offering cursing and blessing, but it is in a different relationship. Notice again in verse 10, for
as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. That
is to All of us are under the law, the law of God. We have
been weighed in the balances. We have been found wanting. We
have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the
wages of sin is death. That is an expression of the
curse of God. Romans 118, for the wrath of
God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness
of men. All who are of the works of the
law are under the curse, judged, condemned, weighed in the balances,
and found wanting. Notice in the middle of verse
10, for it is written, Paul now quotes from the Old Testament
to establish this truth. He quotes Deuteronomy 27, verse
26. In other words, this is not a
new truth that he is teaching. Cursed is everyone." There are
no exceptions to this. Cursed is everyone who does not
abide by, note the next two words, all things written in the book
of the law. One violation of the law brings
the curse of God. You say, how can that be? You
don't understand how holy God is. And you don't understand
how sinful we are. And you don't understand how
righteous God is. And the Bible says if you break
but one law, you are guilty of them all. How many links in a
chain need to break before the entire chain gives way? Just
one. Verse 11, now that no one is
justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous
man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices
them shall live by them. Now, verse 13, this is the sweet
spot. This is the heart of the gospel. Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law. We all are under the curse of
the law. What do we have to do to be under
the curse of the law? Simply be born into this world.
We all like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to
his own way. We've come forth from our mother's womb speaking
lies. In sin did my mother conceive
me. We were dead in trespasses and
sin. Yet Christ has redeemed us from
the curse of the law by His death upon the cross. Jesus, as our
substitute, bore our sins upon the cross. 1 Peter 2 verse 24
says, He bore our sins in His body upon the cross. And as He
bore our sin He suffered under the wrath of
God for those sins. And he suffered a penal punishment
upon that cross as he bore the curse of God in his own body
upon that cross. Notice it says, having become
a curse for us, for it is written, curse it is everyone who hangs
on a tree. Jesus Christ, the seed of the
woman, became our substitute upon the cross. He was without sin. He went to
the cross and became sin for us. And as He bore our sin, He
suffered our judgment, He became cursed for us, and only those
who are this moment in hell suffering the torment of the damned can
even begin to comprehend what He suffered upon that cross that
day. And as He became a curse for
us, the blessing of God has been extended to us through his death
upon the cross. Note verse 14, in order that
in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, verse 10 and verse
13 speaks of the curse, verse 14 speaks of the blessing. Christ
became our curse in order that the blessing of Abraham You remember
in Genesis 15, verse 6, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned
to him as righteousness. God imputed the perfect righteousness
of His own Son, Jesus Christ, to Abraham. And the blessing
of Abraham now comes to all for whom Christ died. The blessing
of Abraham now comes to all who will believe upon the Lord Jesus
Christ in order to be saved. And while you're here, look at
Galatians 4 verse 4. But when the fullness of the
time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman." Note the
end of verse 4, born under the law. He was born under the requirements
of the law, and the law that Adam broke, and that Eve broke,
the law that Israel broke, the law that every Gentile has broken. Christ placed Himself by the
Father's sending under this very same law, yet we who have broken
this law again and again and again and are under the curse,
Christ obeyed perfectly this law. And it is His active obedience
to this law that is reckoned to us when we believe upon His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, who is the great Lawgiver,
is the great and perfect Lawkeeper, and Him who knew no sin, God
made to be sin for us, as He lived a sinless life and died
a substitutionary death upon the cross. From the very beginning
of history, God has set forth to man, at the dawn of civilization,
blessing and cursing. Blessing will bring life, and
disobedience will bring cursing. Adam disobeyed and he brought
the curse of God upon the entire human race. But from the very
beginning, God promised the seed of the woman would crush the
serpent, and that He would provide the salvation that we need to
escape this curse and to have the blessing of God. He would
be the scapegoat who would take away the sins of His people upon
the cross. Thousands have died upon crosses,
and many have died more painful deaths but there is only one
who ever died upon a cross, who received the full measure of
the curse of God while upon that cross. That one is Jesus Christ. And on the cross, Christ died
in our place. He died as our vicarious substitute. And as He hung upon that cross,
God turned His back upon His Son so that the light of His
countenance would come upon us. On the cross, Jesus was in the
reality of the torment of those in hell. As He died in our place,
that we might have the blessing of God unto eternal life. In Deuteronomy 30 verse 19, God
says, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life. Have you chosen life? Have you
chosen to believe upon God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? There
is salvation in no other name. For there is no other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There is one
God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony born at the
proper time. Jesus said, I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me. There is no other Savior for
sinners. There is no other way to escape
the curse for having broken the law of God except to believe
upon Jesus Christ who has died in the place of sinners and become
a curse for us so that there is now therefore no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have peace with God. through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you chosen to believe upon
Christ? If not, why do you procrastinate? Why do you linger? Why do you
wait? Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. If you hear His voice, harden
not your heart. Seek the Lord while He may be
found. Call upon Him while He is near. He says to you, enter through
the narrow gate, for the way is broad, and the gate is wide
that leads to destruction, and many are those who find it. But
the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life.
And few are those who find it. He says, truly, truly, I say
unto you, he who hears these words of mine and acts upon them
is like a very wise man who built his house upon the rock. And
when the rains came and the winds blew and beat against the house,
it did not fall because it was built upon the rock. He hears
these words of mine and does not act upon them, is like a
very foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And when
the rains came and the winds blew and beat against the house,
great was its fall because it was built upon the sand. Believe upon Jesus Christ and
you will be saved. Put your trust in Christ. There
is only one who became a curse for sinners. There is only one
who died a substitutionary death on behalf of sinners who can
give to us the blessing of God. If you have Christ, you have
everything. If you do not have Christ, you
have nothing but the curse of God. The gates of paradise are
swung open even tonight. If you've never believed upon
Christ, I call you this moment to commit your life to Him. Let
us pray. Father in heaven, how we thank
You for Your glorious plan of salvation, that we who have broken
Your law again and again and have brought Your curse upon
our own head from the very beginning of time down to this present
moment. Father, how we praise You that
even from the beginning You promised a sinless Savior who would become
a curse on our behalf as He would bear our sins in His own body. And by that forsaken death upon
the cross, He would offer to us eternal life and the fullness
of Your blessing Father, I pray for those of us here tonight.
We who have believed in Christ, may we glory in the fact that
you have turned your face toward us, that the light of your countenance
is shining upon us because of Christ. that You have accepted
us in the Beloved. You have received us to Yourself. How we praise You tonight for
the fullness of this eternal blessing that is ours. Lord, for any here tonight who
have not yet come to Christ, use tonight, use tomorrow to
draw them to the glorious Savior, Jesus Christ. It is in his name
that we pray, amen.