Genesis chapter 3. I want to read one verse to you
here in the third chapter of Genesis, a very familiar verse. Verse 15. Genesis 3.15. And then
Revelations chapter 12. This is after the fall of our
parents, and this is the promise that God sent them out of the
Garden of Eden with. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman. This is the speaking here of
the serpent. He's speaking of the serpent. 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,
a promise of the coming of the Son of God, to be born of a virgin
woman, and to bruise Satan's head." Now look over in Revelation
chapter 12. Here we have just a little more
light on this. In the first book, we have the
promise of Christ's coming, the seed of the woman, to bruise
the serpent's head. And now here we have some more
light on this in Revelation 12, and beginning in verse 1, there
appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun
and the moon under her feet. and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars. And she then with child cried,
travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared
another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon, having
seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head. And
his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did
cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the
woman, which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her
child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child,
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child
was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled
into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God,
that they should feed her there a thousand, two hundred, and
threescore days. And there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon
fought with his angels. And prevail not, neither was
there found any more place in heaven. And the great dragon
was cast out, that old serpent. called the devil and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out in the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, Now is salvation, and strength, and
the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. For the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before
our God day and night. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. And
they loved not their lives unto death." Genesis now, chapter
11, and beginning here in verse 11. Genesis chapter 11, and beginning
here in verse 10. Let's begin in verse 10. These
are the generations of Shem. Shem was nine hundred years old,
and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood. And Shem lived,
after he begat Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begat sons
and daughters. And Arphaxad lived five and thirty
years, and begat Silah. And Arphaxad lived, after he
begat Silah, four hundred and three years, and begat sons and
daughters. And Salah lived thirty years,
and begat Eber. And Selah lived after he begate
Eber four hundred and three years, and begate sons and daughters.
And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begate Pelag. And
Eber lived after he begate Pelag four hundred and thirty years,
and begate sons and daughters. And Pelag lived thirty years,
and begate Rul. And Pelag lived after he begate
Rul two hundred and nine years, and begate sons and daughters.
And Reuel lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug. And Reuel
lived, after he begat Serug, two hundred and seven years,
and begat sons and daughters. And Serug lived thirty years,
and begat Nahar. And Serug lived, after he begat
Nahar, two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And
Nahar lived nine and twenty years, and begat Tira. And Nahar lived
after he begat Tira in 119 years and begat sons and daughters.
And Tira lived 70 years and begat Abram, Nahar, and Haran. These are the generations of
Tira. Tira begat Abram, Nahar, and Haran. And Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father
Tira in the land of his nativity, in Ere of the Chaldees. And Abram
and Nahar took their wives, the name of Abram's wife was Sarai,
and the name of Nahar's wife, Malchah, and the daughter of
Haran, the father of Malchah, the father of Ishkah. But Sarai
was barren, she bore no children, she had no children. And Terah
took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son,
and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. And they
went forth with them from Ere of the Chaldees to go unto the
land of Canaan. And they came unto Haran, and
dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two
hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran." Now, that's a
lengthy reading, and I appreciate your patience. But I want to
look and compare these scriptures that I read to you this morning,
and we come here to The last portion, the last half of this
chapter, this eleventh chapter of Genesis, and we see a change. Things begin to change, and the
change is in these genealogies that we read here. In the tenth
chapter, you remember we looked last week at the descendants
of these three the three sons of Noah, Japheth and Ham and
Shem. And we look there in that tenth
chapter of their genealogies, and what regions of the world
at that time these three sons settled their families in. But
now we come here to the eleventh chapter, and beginning there
at verse ten, And the Lord sets aside the descendants of Ham. He sets aside the descendants
of Japheth, and He doesn't record their genealogy. He sets those families aside,
and we hear nothing else of them. It seems like the Lord is saying,
I have purpose to leave you. I don't intend to write your
genealogies. I don't intend to mention your
families. If you want to keep your descendants,
if you want to record your prosperity, you must do it yourself. If you
want to keep track of who your grandfathers were and who your
great-grandchildren are, then you must write it down in a book
yourself. And for the first time we see here that the Lord in
a most peculiar way, and in a particular way, he records the lineage of
Shem. And it's because through this
man is to come the seed of the woman. Leaving there with Adam
through Seth and that lineage, What you and I would call the
golden thread, the royal seed out of which the Son of God would
come, was to come through this lineage of Shem. And as we read
the names here of Shem's descendants, one generation after another,
we see one son after another set aside, and his name is never
reported again. One family after another is set
aside, and we never hear of them again. In the 11th chapter, in verse
10 and 11, I read to you as an example here that we are told
that Shem had five sons, but four of them were set aside.
We never hear of them again. We don't know what happened to
them, what happened to the descendants of Shem from those four sons. but our faxes is chosen. And then we're told there in
verse 11 that Selah had sons, but only one was chosen, and
the rest was passed by. God only records the lineage
of Shem, and he only records the sons of Shem and his descendants. He only keeps track of those.
from whom the seed of the woman is to come. And this takes us back to Genesis
chapter 3 and verse 15. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. And when he
comes he shall bruise the serpent's head. And it also takes us here
to Revelations chapter 12. where this great dragon, he waits,
he waits and he stands before this golden thread, and every
generation he watches and he listens for this man-child to
be born, to do his best to devour him. How frustrating it must
be. Because Satan, this big dragon,
this red dragon, he's not all-knowing. He has to look at the scriptures.
He has to wait for it to be revealed. He knows the seed of the woman
will be born to bruise his head, but what nation will he come
out of? What tribe will he come out of?
What family will he descend from? whose son's daughter will bear
the seed of this woman. Satan and his fallen stars, they
anxiously wait until God reveals his purpose, and then they wait
and they watch to do what they can to hinder the seed that's
coming from this golden thread. And when it was revealed here,
in chapter 11 and chapter 12, that this golden thread was to
run through Sarah and Abraham, and this seed was to come from
Abraham's loins and from Sarah's womb. Don't you imagine that
day after day, Satan waited and he watched. He watched Sarah
and he listened to do what he could to stop the birth of Isaac. He heard the Lord saying unto
Abraham, Sarah, thy wife shall indeed bear thee a son, and you
shall call his name Isaac, and my covenant shall stand fast
with him, and in his seed all the nations will be blessed.
But their hopes were renewed as they watched Sarah, because
they remembered that she was an old woman, and that she was
barren. And they no doubt did what they
could to discourage her and weaken her faith, because Sarah counted
God faithful who had promised, and through faith she received
strength to conceive silly. But one day, this dragon and
his fallen stars were passing by the tent of this old barren
woman, and they heard her laughing. And this is what she said, I
have born Abraham a son in my own age. A dark day, no doubt,
for the devil and his fallen angels. But when Isaac was born,
they watched him. They couldn't destroy him, but
they could tempt him. They could harass him and they
could send Ishmael to mock him. And finally, in the process of
time, Isaac met Rebekah and they had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Satan knew that Jacob, the youngest,
was the royal seed. He listened. He listened as the
Lord spoke to Rebekah and said, The elder shall serve the younger. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. Oh, the devil knew then that
Jacob was the raw seed. And he listened and he looked
every way he could. to destroy this Jacob. He begins
to tempt, he begins to seek to devour, he puts hate in Esau's
heart to kill him, to kill his brother. If he can just kill
Jacob, the cord will be broken and my head will be spared. But
the Lord frustrated Jacob's devices and brought his counsel to naught. And Jacob flees to Iraq, and
there he marries Leah, and he marries Rachel. And I can almost
feel the frustration in the devil's mind as Jacob has one son after
another, until finally twelve sons are born. And the Lord says,
out of those twelve tribes shall come a number that no man can
number. How frustrated the devil must
have been. How can I possibly keep track
of these trials? How can I know what man and what
woman this seed that's to bruise my head is to come out of? But does he give up? No, no,
he doesn't give up. He listens and he watches to
see what's revealed. And then it's revealed to this
woman, to this man, poor Jacob, upon his deathbed. He's laying
there dying, and he calls his sons. His twelve sons. And the devil is there. The devil
is always where the Lord's people are. He listens, and he watches. And Jacob leans upon his chain,
and this is what he says to his son Judah. The scepter shall
not depart from you, my son. nor a lawgiver from between thy
feet, until Shiloh come, until the tranquil one come, until
the peacemaker come, for that's what Shiloh means. He's the peacemaker. The seed of the woman is coming
to make peace by the blood of his cross. And he says, Judah,
the scepter shall not depart from you until he come. And unto
him shall the gathering of the people be, and he shall wash
his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes."
Oh, and the devil heard that. Satan heard that. He heard it. But he must have been so frustrated.
This seed is coming through Jacob's loins, through Judas' loins. He's coming through Judah. Why
did that frustrate Him? That He was coming through Judah
just a few years before this. The Lord had killed two of Judah's
sons. And Judah's daughter-in-law disguised
herself as a harlot and sat on the side of the road. And the
devil tempted Judah. to lay with him, thinking, I'll
cast a snare into this man. I'll tempt God to destroy this
man. But out of that relationship ran this fine golden thread from
which the seed of the woman should come. And again, the devil's
devices is frustrated. And God proved that not only
the foolishness of the Lord is wiser than men, but it's even
wiser than devils. When Satan heard this promise
that Jacob prophesied to his son Judah, no doubt he was hopeful
and fearful. He was hopeful because now he
could watch, he could concentrate on one tribe, and that was the
tribe of Judah. He could more or less set the
other tribes aside and he could concentrate on this one tribe,
the tribe of Judah. But he was fearful because this
promise seemed so sure. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah until Shiloh come. It shall not blend. And the devil
knows the meaning of words. He looks up these definitions.
He knows what shall mean. He knows it means unavoidable
and inescapable. And he heard Jacob say to his
son Judah, he shall come, he shall come, the peacemaker. And
unto him shall the gathering of the people be. People shall
be gathered to him. So he begins to watch and concentrate
on the tribe of Judah. He stands before each man as
they marry a woman, as a great dragon waiting to devour. And we put this golden thread
between our fingers and we follow it down into Egypt. And there
we find this royal seed, this lineage of shem. that we find
them in great affliction and danger. An order comes down from
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to these Hebrew midwives, that when
a Hebrew mother bears a child, it's to be killed. Just the men's
job. And we don't have to wonder who's
behind that order, do we? And I imagine that orders secretly
went out, especially to watch those men child who was born
to the tribe of Judah. But those midwives would not
obey his command. And then Pharaoh sent out another
command, that every man child that was born was to be drowned
in the river. Drowned in the river. But the
Lord raised up a man by the name of Moses. And he delivered the
children of Israel. And Satan, this old dragon, and
his fallen stars, they watched and they listened, knowing that
their lives depended upon it. And one generation after another
passed. But Satan seemed to grow more
arrogant, and his heart is filled with more pride, if that's possible,
because he's learning more and more. Everything that's written
by inspiration, he reads it and he learns. He examines the holy
record. So he follows this golden thread
out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the desert, and for
40 years he watches them. He watches the tribe of Judah,
every man that's born, waiting and seeking to do all he can
to break this golden thread. He follows the twelve tribes
as they cross the Jordan with special eye to the tribe of Judah. Israel defeats Jericho, and they
rescue a harlot by the name of Rahab. And they bring her to
the tribes of Israel, and she lives there. And she meets a
prince in Israel by the name of Selma, and they marry. And Satan eliminates Salmon and
this harlot. Surely the seed will not come
from him. No, surely not a farmer harlot
and perhaps of the cursed tribe of Canaan. And once again we
see that the Lord takes the devil in his own devices and brings
his purposes to naught. Four generations later, after
this former harlot had married this Hebrew man, there was a
young lad who came out of his lawns and came out of Rahab's
womb. He was a little lad by the name
of David. And his job was to attend his father's sheep. there in Israel. And you and
I don't know if Satan got wind of this, or if he was just not
willing to take any more chances. But one day while this little
lad was tending his father's sheep, Satan entered into a line. He possessed him, and he come
against this little child. And Satan thought within his
mind, if the lineage is to run through this boy's loins, if
he's found in the severed cord through which this Messiah is
to come, I'll break that cord today. And that raging lion roared
against that lad. And he wretched out his little
tender hand as a mighty warrior. and tuck that line by the beard,
and slew him. And Satan came against him with
a bear, and he slew the bear. And Satan found the biggest giant
that he could find, and put on him a coat of mail,
and a spear in his hand, and a shield in his hand, and a sword
chief next to his side. And this little lad went out
against it and slew him with a stone. Oh, I imagine it was about this
time, Satan began to think, if I cannot stand before a little
boy who is filled with the Spirit of the living God, how can I
possibly stand before God incarnate? I imagine it was somewhere around
this time that he truly began to comprehend, it could be that
my doom is sealed and my fate is sure. I wonder when Satan
reads the New Testament, and we know that he does, and he
reads where the Apostle said that Jesus Christ the Lord is
made of the seed of David according to the flesh. And that God of
David's seed has raised unto Israel a Savior, and His name
is Jesus. And I wonder if Satan reads that,
if he doesn't shake his head in frustration and say, I did
everything I could do to kill that lad. I sent a raging lion
against him. I sent a bearer against him to
tear him to pieces. I found the fusiest man I could
find in the world. And that lad killed him with
a rock. And he puts his bruised head between his black hands
and he says, My doom is sealed. My doom is sealed. Oh, but here in the house of
David, this thread, this golden thread seems like it continually
is narrowing. Before it was the twelve sons
of Jacob, twelve nations. that he was to come from. Then
it was narrowed down to one tribe, the tribe of Judah. And now it's
narrowed down to one house, the house of David. And it's here
in this house of David that this golden thread seems to be stretched
almost to the breaking point. And as you read this account
in David's house What makes it so fearful is not only that the
devil himself seeks to break this thread, but now it seems
that God Almighty is ready to break it. David had a son by
the name of Solomon, and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
And the Lord separated his kingdom. Israel was the northern kingdom,
and Judah, the house of David, was the southern kingdom. And
because the house of David had fell into wickedness, God brought
judgment upon it. He sent a man by the name of
Jehu, and they killed many men in David's house. And He sent
the Arabians against them. And they slew and took captive
many men in David's house, until finally only one man and his
children was left. He was a man by the name of Ahasuerus,
and then he is killed. And all that's left is his children,
and then his children are killed. All but one. All but one of the
seed royal is killed. And this man has his own mother. The grandmother is the one who
took and by evil hands slew her grandbabies. Out of a heart of
hatred and ambition to rule herself, she attempted to kill all the
seed royal. One little child was left by
the name of Josh. His aunts took him and fled with
him, while they were slaughtering all his brothers, and hid him
away there in the closet in the temple of the Lord." Now imagine
this. You imagine this. Here was the promise to David
of your seed after the flesh, will I raise up Christ to sit
on your throne. And this fine thread was to run
through the loins of this one tiny child. He was the only one
that was left in the seed royal. And there he lay, hid away in
the bedchamber. If this little one-year-old infant
does not survive, the serpent's head will be spared. God's purpose
will be defeated and His promises will fail. Now, somebody might
say, could God not modify His purpose? Could He not change
it? Somebody might say, did David
not have more descendants than this? He may have well had. But this golden thread must run
through the loins. of this one long survivor, Joash,
hidden away in the temple in a closet. If this golden thread
is broken, it cannot and it will not be retied. There is no knot
in this thread. If God has to change His purpose,
then God has failed in His purpose. And if God has failed in His
purpose, then He will cease to be God. He must vacate His throne,
and therefore the devil survives. But you and I are without any
hope. Let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die
and perish forever." I would say this morning to you,
the context of which I'm speaking, You can go there to that temple,
and you can find the closet where this infant is hid away. And
you can open the door and sift through the quilts and the mattresses
until you find this little infant of one year old. And look at
the fear in his eyes, and watch his little lip as it quivers,
and hear the lonely voice that he mutters. And you can turn
to his aunt and you can say this, upon this infant hangs the hopes
of the fallen world. If he does not survive, the seed
cannot come. Oh, this thread had narrowed
down to the point that it seemed like it had stretched, ready
to break. But Joas was preserved. Finally,
he was set upon the throne, there upon the throne of David, and
when he died, Amaziah his son reigned in his stead, and the
golden thread was not broken. But it is not long until something
else is revealed concerning the seed of the woman. The very place
where he is to be born is revealed. And no doubt how Satan rejoiced
to hear it. Now he could go stand in this
tiny town of Bethlehem and wait until a woman brought forth her
child and do what he could to devour it. But the revelation
even broads. Satan does not have to be concerned
anymore about converted hearts. or about incest, or about children
from second marriages. Now Satan knows what kind of
woman the seed is to come from, because it's revealed. A virgin
shall conceive and bring forth a son. Now this fine thread The
revelation concerning it gets narrower and narrower. Now he
can watch every virgin. Now he can stand before every
virgin and wait for the man-child to be born to seek to devour
him. But if Satan never knew it before,
he finds it out here. The nature of this seed is this,
Immanuel, the Lord from heaven. I tell you one thing, brothers
and sisters, you've got to give this devil his due. He's got
to be somewhat courageous, though I think a lot of it is just a
front that he puts up. But can you imagine him knowing
who this seed is, knowing the nature of the seed of the woman,
and yet stand there and wait until he's born, seeking to battle
with him, battle with God incarnate? I for one believe that the devil
could not muster up much confidence as he stood there waiting for
the seed of the woman to come forth. Oh, he may have pretended
to be courageous, he may have put up a front before his allies,
but I for one have to believe that his knees spoke together
and his countenance fell, and he and his fallen stars They
had followed this golden thread and did what they could to break
it for the sake of their own survival. But all had finally
failed. And now it had come down to this.
Here in Galilee, in the city of Nazareth, a virgin was with
child of the Holy Ghost. The seed of the woman. He had
come. The seed of that little boy that
was stored away in the closet. The seed of that little boy whom
the devil had sent a lion and a bear and a giant against. The seed of Abraham. The seed
of Shem. The seed of Seth. The seed of
Adam who was the created son of God. who had sinned by this
murderous serpent and had defaced the image of God in us. Now the
seed of the woman had come, the eternal Son of God in our humanity,
Shiloh the peacemaker. And not only did he possess the
expressed image of God Himself, but he's come to restore that
image in you and in me. And here the dragon makes his
last stand before his head is bruised. He fills the nation
of Israel with hate in their hearts. He fills their minds
with unbelief and darkness until finally with one united voice,
there in the judgment hall of Pilate, we hear him cry aloud,
Crucify Him! Crucify Him! If Satan could have
stopped the cross, he would have. If the Lord Jesus Christ had
been content to become an earthly king, all would have been well. If he had been satisfied to throw
off the Roman rule and reign there in Jerusalem, all would
have been well. But he announces his cause. I
came to give my life a ransom. I came to destroy him that had
the power of the devil. I came to destroy the works of
Satan. I came to make war on my enemies
and the enemies of my people. I came to expose them and do
war with them and overcome them and defeat them and expose them
openly. And the only place He can do
that is on the cross of Calvary. And when Jesus, our Lord, hanged
there upon that cross with deep pharaohs in His back,
a crown of thorns upon His head, with His hands and His feet pierced,
and blood trickling and soaking His flesh, with his beard plucked
from his face. And he cried, it's finished.
And the soldier reached the spear and pierced his side and all
the cells of his body emptied the blood and the water. And
there he hung, his skin looked as though it would have been
washed with the blood of grace. He hanged there in his blood.
but in hanging by in His blood and breathing out His life's
breath, He bruised the serpent's head. He destroyed his work and
rescued us. And now, this seed, this seed
of the woman, He was raised up from the dead. And my text says
that he was called up into heaven to the throne of God. And there
he sits in our glorified humanity. And you and I can begin there
at Jerusalem. And we can follow again this
golden thread as it binds elect sinners one after another with
cords of love. reaching to every soul that has
been predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son. And
this fine thread begins to grow and it extends to Judea and Samaria
and Galilee and becomes a mighty cord and reaches to the north
and the south and the east and the west. It reaches every nation. It reaches every tribe and every
family and every tongue. And this golden thread grows
as wide as the world and extends to the end of time, until at
last heaven and earth itself shall be filled with a number
that no man can number, all in the likeness of the Son of God incarnate. And there they'll be with Him
forever, and He'll never be separated from their humanity again. But He that was made in their
likeness has now raised them up in His. And as He come to
this earth to bear our infirmities and our weaknesses and to die
our death, now He has risen them up to share in His glory. in His everlasting life. And
they'll be with Him and enjoy Him forever. World without end. Praise His
holy name. Praise His redeeming name. Oh, our Father, what are we to
say before You this morning? We don't have any words to speak. We read in the beginning, You
tell us of Your purpose. And now we know that You upheld
it. Against the rage of hell and
this earth, You upheld it. And He has come, and He has revealed the cause
of His coming to reconcile, to make peace. We bless Your Holy
Name. Thank you for this precious Word. Bless this to each of our hearts. And may we, even this day, know Him whom to know is life
eternal. Amen.