If you would, please turn to
Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. I'm just going to read two verses,
verses 14 and verses 15. I will make some comments on
the previous stuff and some after actually. Genesis chapter 3 and
verse 14, and the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou
hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every
beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now, the way my Bible is put
together, They put a little star at the end of a verse if it's
got something to do with the Messiah. There's a star there. And rightly so. Rightly so. I've entitled this message, The
Seed of the Woman. The Seed of Woman. But here,
what I want us to see and what I want to talk about is, in the
scriptures, this is the first mention of the gospel. Now, very clearly, this is not
the first mention of Christ. It's the first mention of the
gospel. The first mention of Christ is very clearly, I think,
you can find it easily in Genesis 1-1. In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. And you read John 1, and you'll
see who that was. It was the word that was with
God and the word that was God. But right here in Genesis 315,
we have and we are told who is superior and supreme. We are given the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This is what they call, you know,
They have a terminology for this, the theologians do. It's called
the Proto-Evangelium. The first evangel. That's what it means. Proto is
Greek for first and Evangelium is evangelism. The first evangelism
and that's true. We are shown Satan and we are
shown Christ in this verse. And we are told who is superior
and who is supreme. But also we are told who is not
superior and not supreme. Those ignorant of the Bible have
this tendency to consider this to be a great battle between
God and Satan. It's not. Here in Genesis 3,
we've already been told the end. The seed of the woman is going
to bruise the head of the serpent. That's going to happen. Why? God said so. And the battle is
the Lord's. Every battle is the Lord's. And
the war is the Lord's. There are those who, oh, there's
a great battle going on for men's souls. No, there's not. There's not. I don't know how other way to
put this, but I will tell you this. Whatever God wants, God
gets. And it says so right here. It's
gonna happen. He is in the heavens. He hath
done whatsoever he hath pleased. And that's just the, that's just,
that's the Bible. If you miss that, you've missed
everything. And if you miss Christ, you missed it all. The Bible
and everything else. Verse 14 says, and the Lord God
said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed above all cattle. And above every beast of the
field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all
the days of thy life. I'm not going to spend a lot
of time on this, but understand this here. We see God cursed
the serpent for a reason. Now, this serpent is Satan, is
the devil, is the adversary. He is the one who beguiled Eve. He is the one who deceived Eve,
right? Why did God curse the serpent?
Very simply, the serpent lied God. What? Is that all? Is that all? Oh boy, that's more than enough. Lying about God is a capital
offense. He won't have it. He may put
up with it for a while, but it will be required at your hands
or at Christ's hands. I'll be honest, I used to lie
about God. I try not to now. Before, I didn't care. Before,
I didn't know. Why? Because I didn't know Him. Yeah, well, my dad told me growing
up, and he was right, your mouth gets you into trouble, boy. He
was right. Yeah. Because I said things I
thought. And the bad part was a lot of
times I said things before I thought. They just come right out. Satan thought about this and
Satan lied about God. And God cursed him for it. Why? Because he was deserving
to be cursed for it. Lying about God is a hanging
offense. In this case, it costs Satan
his legs, the serpent its legs. Verse 15, and I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, it shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. I do want to
point out something here at the beginning, very carefully if I can, that
most preachers will ignore. God. This is where everything
starts. God has put enmity. God put it there. It ain't up
to you. It ain't up to me. Satan's already
showed it. Lying about God is a result of
enmity against God. But God said, I'm going to put
it there. And guess what? There's where it stays. Because
if God puts it there, it's there. God put enmity. Men don't like that. Men don't
like that. But men don't like a lot of things
God does. If you've been in the way any length of time, you will
find out man hates the things of God. What's that? Enmity. Emnity he said and thy seed the
serpent seed the serpent has a seed Wait a minute wait, what are
you talking about? Our Lord when he was here in
his incarnation preaching and Speaking to men he looked at
some fellas, and he told them you are of your father the devil
and He was a liar at the beginning, he's a liar now, and so are you. His works you shall do. The world don't want to have
that. Is it nature or is it nurture? No, it's God. Read Romans 9. I won't go there because Walter
probably will though. I love Romans 9. Roman 7 4 3
15 whatever It's all true, I will put in
the tea I will put in the tea and with her between Between thy seed and her seed There's already a separation
There's already a separation I wonder who put that there.
The same one who put the enmity there. The same one who put the
hatred there. He says it. I will. Who's doing this? Well, not Adam,
not Eve, not the serpent. God said I'm going to put it
there. There's a separation. between thy seed and her seed,
and there always will be. There always has been. This is
Genesis 3. Come on. You can't get much further
back than that. We're still talking about the
first man and the first woman. They're still in the Garden of Eden. Before we ever got out of the
Garden of Eden, guess what? There's a separation. And God
put it there. Now what does that mean? It means
that God has put enmity between the woman and the serpent, and
between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Happy
Easter. My Easter message. It is the
gospel, I'm gonna get to it, but you gotta start with what
you got. And here, in these statements,
God starts with cursing the serpent and God starts with enmity. But
he does start also with that separation. Because he has put
enmity between the seed of the serpent and her seed if you believe
God and his son, the devil, hates you. Marvel not if the world hates
you. That's what our Lord says. Well,
marvel not if Satan hates you. It hated Christ before it hated
you. The world hated Christ before
it hated you. And Satan hated Christ before
it hated you. Man just acts on the enmity that
God has put there. He came into the world. He came
unto his own and his own received him not. He came unto man, and
man hated him. Light came into the world, and
what? Men love darkness rather than
light. In the place of light, they hate. Does it say that? Men hate the
light. Wait a minute. Jesus is the light,
right? You mean men hate Jesus? That's
exactly what I mean. Because that's exactly what God
there. That's exactly what Jesus Christ
said. Marvel not if they hate you.
That was the light of life speaking. Enmity is between the serpent
and the seed of woman and enmity between the serpent's seed and
the seed of the woman. Mmm goodness, I know it's awfully
depressing for Easter message so far And I want to point this
part out Imnity was there from the very beginning Genesis chapter
3 in the Garden of Eden Imnity was there from the beginning
God put it there the name Satan means adversary and The devil
is the adversary. That's the word. He is adverse
to God. He is against God. He is against God's people. He is against God's Christ. And
therefore, he's against you. How do I know that? God said so. That's all I need. Now, I've seen it. I've seen
it in church meetings, where hatred comes out. Came out against me, came out
against Walter, come out against the gospel. It was all against
Christ. That's all it was about. If we
had quit saying what we were saying about Jesus Christ, they
would have never said another word. They shook our hands, slapped
us on the back, said, God, we're glad you're still here. But you
preach his gospel, you're preaching him. And the world hates him. And that goes for the religious
world double. Because the secular world will
just think you're the same thing as John Travolta and the Christian
scientists. They don't know the difference between Christian
scientists, or whatever, Scientology, or Methodists, or Episcopalian,
or Baptists, or free grace. It's all one big lump of ignorance
to them. But the religious world knows
what you're saying, and they hate what you're saying. The last thing. You see at the
end of this verse, there's some bruising going on. Bruising has been prophesied
here in Genesis chapter three. The serpent's head's gonna be
bruised and the seed's heel is going to be bruised. Now this
has happened. Now here it's prophesied in the
future. Now I'm here to tell you it happened
in the past. We'll get into that a little
bit. But there's bruising prophesied, and it's prophesied both ways,
against the serpent and against the sea. Now, it's more severe
to the serpent, because trust me, you would rather be bruised
on your heel than on your head. I have been bruised in both places.
And bruising to the head, in this case, means death. It's
an injury to your head. there is no hope, no help, no
nothing without the seed being bruised on his heel, on his heel. All of our hope, all hope is
with the seed of woman. And all victory With the seed
of woman because he is going to bruise. He has bruised the
serpent's head But here It's promised the first promise
of Christ is a promise that him being bruised You can't get away from it There's
going to be more. That's why they call this the
proto-evangelium. This is the first mention of
the gospel. There's going to be a progressive
revelation of more to come. God's going to preach, talk to
Noah. And we're going to see some wonderful
things of Christ in that ark that was made for their salvation.
God's talking to Abraham and talking about what? Abraham's
seed. Abraham's seed. And God promised Abraham a son. But then you'll see him tell
that man to offer up that son as a sacrifice. There's going
to be more coming. There's going to be more about
the lamb, the sacrifice. There's going to be more about
the son. There's going to be more about the seed of woman.
But here's what we see right here. There is no gospel without
the seed being bruised. And that's just the truth of
it. Adam and Eve had just sinned.
They had sinned. Now, Eve was deceived. Adam was
not. I hear a lot of guys wanting
to blame Eve for all the problems. Well, Eve was deceived. Adam
was not. And God threw them both out of
the garden. And the curse came upon all.
The serpent was cursed above all, but Adam and Eve were cursed. This earth was cursed. Everything
was cursed. Thank God for the seed of a woman
who was made a curse, the curse for us. There's no hope without the bruising
of the seed. The last thing I want to point
out from this verse before I get to some things Is this one thing,
because of what we were talking about, I'm going to say, I thought
I might not say it, but y'all know my Catholic background,
and y'all were talking a little bit about the Pope on TV, since
it is Easter Sunday. Notice very carefully in this
verse, in this first mention of the Gospel, very, very carefully,
there is no help in the woman. Sorry, that's just the way it
is. The only help is in the seed of the woman. Yes. Yes. But there's no help in the woman.
Okay? There is no co-mediatrix. And I'm going to tell you this, you
can prove that from the very first thing. The first seed that came out
of the woman, in this case physically, was Cain. That's not what God
was talking about here. He wasn't talking about Cain.
He wasn't talking about Abel. He wasn't talking about Seth. He's
talking about the seed of the woman. So, I don't know how many, I got
five things here about what we have in this passage of scripture.
First of all, this is the very first messianic prophecy in the
scripture. What do I mean by this? This
is the first promise given by God of the coming of Jesus Christ,
the seed, a woman, her seed. This is the first mention of
the Son of God as the coming Messiah. It's not the first mention
of Christ, but it is the first mention of the Son, the seed
of woman, coming. And we're also shown that this
Son is coming with a purpose. He came to this world to bruise
the head of the serpent and to get his heel bruised. There is one coming. It's what
God's telling us here. There's one coming, and he's
going to be that anointed one and no other. Secondly, this is the first gospel
message. This is the first message with
good news. We've just been cursed. There's just been cursing going
around, and there's more coming afterwards. But notice very carefully,
I love this part, First gospel message was preached by God himself Where you folks get your gospel
we got it from him He's first This is the first
mention of the seed of the woman. This is the first mention of
his Heel being bruised. This is the first mention of
him bruising the serpent's head and who says it and God says
it. God says it. The Lord God said
unto the serpent, and then the Lord God said, I'll put enmity. And the Lord God said, the serpent's
head is gonna be bruised. And the Lord God said, the seed's
heel's gonna be bruised. Whose gospel is it anyway, Mason? It's God's gospel. It's the gospel
of his dear son. It's the gospel of Christ and
praise God by his grace. It's my gospel. Not that I'm the author of it,
but I get to be the proclaimer of it. And I am, even if I'm
not proclaiming it, I'm a believer of his gospel. It's mine. And don't try and take it from
me because it wouldn't work. He give it to me. You can't take
it from him. Oh yeah, you can kill me. I could
deny him. But you can't take his truth
from me. Even when I'm lying about it, I know he's still true. I feel bad about lying. That's
how I know something's happened because I didn't used to feel
bad about some lies. You know them little white lies they call
them? They're still lies. There's still lies. No, I'm not going to say that. Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God,
preached the gospel for the first time in this world. God, that's great. That is just
marvelous. He preached the good news the
first time it was preached, Walter. All we're doing is saying what
he said. Isn't that a beautiful thing? The first message of the gospel
came from God. Who knew? Some people thought
it came from Benny Hinn. Some people think it came from
Charles Spurgeon. Oh well, sometimes Charles Spurgeon
preaches this gospel. but God's the one that started
it. He's the author and the finisher of it. He's the author and the
finisher of all things. And He is the proclaimer of His
gospel for the very first time. And I think that's just marvelous.
The gospel is the message of God, and the gospel is the message
from God. First and foremost, is God's
message and if it's not God's gospel
being preached it ain't the gospel no it's a anathema and let him be
accursed and you know what Oh, curse there are above all cattle,
above every beast of the field, and on their belly shall they
go, and dust shall you eat for the rest of your life. Why? Because
of lying on God. That's what it means to preach
another gospel. It means you're lying among God. And God won't
have it. I said he may put up with it,
but I've seen too many TV preachers brought down. I expect the rest
of them to be brought down or just killed one day or the other.
And they will. They will. And they may be thinking
they're living high on a hog, but right now they're eating
dust. Because that's all you do when you lie on God, you're
eating dust. You ain't getting no sheep food. You ain't in no
heavenly pasture. You're not even on an earthly
pasture. You're not getting the good word of God, you're getting
a lie. And trust me, a lie is not good
food for the shepherd's sheep. Third thing I do want to point
out here in this passage is the Christ is preached here. The message, the gospel, the
good news from Yahweh Elohim is the Christ, the anointed one,
the Messiah. Here in this case, the seed of
woman or her seed, her seed. Jesus Christ alone is the seed
of the woman. And he's Abraham's seed. Because the seed of the woman,
her seed, and Abraham's seed are exactly the same person. You got scripture for that? Of
course I do. Galatians 3.16. I want to turn
there just for a minute. Galatians 3 16 Now to Abraham and his what seed
Were the promises made This is the Apostle Paul writing. He
saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy
seed now this being interpreted as It doesn't have to be interpreted
to say that, which is Christ. Abraham's seed is Jesus Christ. Now if you've got a problem with
that, you've got a problem with the whole Bible. And you're going to have a problem
with me, except for I'm not going to talk to you. Because I'm not going
to argue with an idiot. Abraham's seed is Jesus Christ. And Abraham's seed is the same
as her seed in Genesis 3.15. Here's the point, the promises
were to Him. All the promises are to Christ.
All the promises are in Christ. If you're not in Christ, you've
got no claim on no promise. I don't care if you're Jew, Gentile,
bond-free, rich, poor, old or young, or ugly or pretty. It
doesn't matter. Everything, all the promises,
the promises were made Christ to Christ And Abraham see is
Christ But Galatians chapter 4 and verse
4 It says but when the fullness of time was come God sent forth
his son made of a woman made Under the law guess who that
is That's her seed. That's the seed of a woman. Made
of a woman, made under the law, but to redeem. God, I love that part. You can't
leave that out. See, there's a purpose for the
bruising of the heel of the woman's seed. He was made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law. Why
that? Another purpose. We might receive
the adoption of sons. Adult sons. Fully brought in
members of the family. Guess what? That's another purpose
of the son's deceit, heel, being bruised. There's a purpose for the bruised
heel of the seed and it is to redeem and to give us the adoption
of sons Isaiah 9 and 6 says that one little thing it's for unto
us a child is born But unto us a son is given What that's her
seat that's her seat And the government shall be upon
his shoulder and And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace." Well, we don't have peace now. That's all right.
He's still the prince of it, whether you got it or not. The
government's on his shoulder, whether we understand it or not.
See, there are people who say, well, the government's not on
his shoulders now. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. The only problem is you don't
see it. By him, all things consist. That means, by him, all things
consist. The government's on his shoulders.
He's wonderful. He's the counselor. He's the
mighty God. He's the everlasting father.
He is the prince of peace, whether we have any or not. And if you
know him, you do have peace. If you don't know him, you know
absolutely nothing about peace. Because that's not what he's
talking about. He's not talking about peace on earth as we see it. Peace did come to earth, and
peace was on earth, walking around on two legs. My goodness. Fourth thing is
the end of the serpent is shown here. The serpent's head is going
to be bruised. What does that mean? That means
dead. Death. The serpent shall bruise the
heel of the seed, but the seed of the woman shall bruise his
head. That's just a fact. I still think about David and
Goliath. If you've ever looked at that, you'll read it, that
account of David and Goliath. David threw that stone and hit
Goliath right there and embedded it in his forehead. Okay? Embedded it in his forehead.
He fell down and said, David slew him with a stone. Guess
what? He bruised his head. But, then
he went up and took a sword and cut his head off. And what's
it say? David slew Goliath with a sword. He killed him twice. Why? Because some things you need
to cut their head off to make sure they're fully dead. When
he bruised his head, he bruised his head at Calvary. But there's
going to come a time he's going to cut the devil's head off.
There's a lake of fire coming. And when he bruised his head,
he did bruise the seed's heel. And we got all the blessings
out of that heel being bruised. Because that's the fifth thing
I see. The bruising of the seed is seen here. The seed of the
woman shall be, and from our viewpoint, has been, had his
heel bruised. The seed of the woman lived,
died, was buried, and he arose again. according to the scriptures. And in doing so, that seed is
bringing forth much fruit. A seed's gotta go in the ground
for it to come up. One little corn goes in, a whole bunch of
seeds on that ear of corn, and there's a whole bunch of ears
on one plant. The seed of the woman. He was made of a woman to redeem.
He was made of a woman, the seed of the woman that he might give
us. You don't earn it. You don't
deserve it. Give us the adoption of sons. I like that. His heel was bruised,
but Abraham's seed Her seed, the seed of the woman, has reconciled
us to the Father. Now be ye reconciled to God.
Oh, wow. Time to quit. I'm not going to
stop here. I do want to look at one more
thing in Genesis 3. It also starts with a G. Because
I don't want to leave it here. I don't want to leave it here
because there's one more thing I want to tell you about this
first preaching of the gospel by God Almighty. Okay? There was a definite result to
the preaching of the first gospel message. The first mention of
the truth, the gospel of Christ was preached here by the Lord
God Almighty Himself And there's a definite result of this. Now,
don't focus on the next verse. Don't focus on the curse. The cursing started before the
gospel was preached. Don't get the cart before the
horse. You're not going to have good news until you already had
the bad news. The bad news had already happened. It started. It wasn't finished, but it started.
But don't focus on the curse. Because the curse is not the
result of the gospel. The gospel was given because
of the curse. The curse is not a result of
the gospel. The curse is already there. The gospel will let you
know about the curse that you're under. Focus on this, verse 21. Unto Adam also, and to his wife,
did the Lord God make coats of skins, and, I love this and,
and clothed them. Clothed them. He made them a
coat of skin. I don't care, I ain't gonna argue
with you about how they got there, but I know where skins come from.
You wanna be a nitpicker, go right ahead. I won't say anything
about it. All I know is God come up with some coats of skin. And
here's the point. He clothed them. He clothed them. Now what have Walter and I and
Earl before us and all grace preachers around us been saying?
You can't clothe yourself. That's grace. That's grace. Two guys from the Church of Christ
were arguing on TV after our program this morning. And talking
about, well, you're saved by grace, but it's through faith.
See, that's two things. That's two words. You're not saved by
grace alone. You're not saved by faith alone.
No, faith is the result of grace, okay? Mercy is the result of
grace. Everything good from God, from
the bruising of that heel, of that seed, Grace because you
don't deserve none of it. You can't do any of it and you
won't do any of it You will not come to me But after this message is preached
God got him coats of skin and God clothed him I love that I
do the father of the prodigal son said what bring the best
robe and Let him put it on. No, he didn't say that I He didn't
say, let him put on the robe. He said, put it on him. Bring
him the best robe. Put it on him. I like that. Because he's going to sit down
at my table, and we're going to eat. We're going to feed. We're going to feast. And yes, Adam and Eve got kicked
out of the Garden of Eden. Yes, they did. Yes, this Earth
was cursed and is still cursed. And you can believe the environmentalists
or not. But all I know, whether it's
global warming or not, we're not helping. OK? Man is hurting whatever we touch. Why? Because we're cursed, too. That part doesn't matter. Not
because of anything that it doesn't matter. But here's the part that
does matter before God put them out of the garden, he clothed
them. And they went out, what? Clothed
by God. After the first gospel message
was preached. I like that. God preached, they got clothed. Because I'm going to tell you
something, when God preaches you the gospel, you're going
to believe it. You don't have to believe me.
You may not believe me. I understand wholeheartedly. Because there
was a time I wouldn't have believed me. There was a time I wouldn't
have believed Walter. I wouldn't have believed Earl.
I was that dead and that hard-headed and that stupid to boot. And
even ignorant on top of that. But when God preaches you the
gospel, you're going to get clothed. And He's going to put you where
He wants you. Our Heavenly Father, I'm thankful
again for this day, this time. And for you, most of all, who
have given everything to us through your son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
in whose name we pray, amen.