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Here is a wonderful sermon I heard by Richard Anderson, pastor of Sierra Madre Conregational Church.

The First Promise

Genesis 3:15: " And 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."

The hymn says: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.   I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

The theme for the first Sunday in Advent is hope. When we think of hope it is in the context of hopelessness, light in the context of darkness, strength in weakness, health though health is threatened with illness and death. Is there hope?

At one of the darkest periods of Israel's history, the prophet Jeremiah said in Lamentations 3:21-23: " This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." The hymn "Great is Thy Faithfulness" comes from these verses.

We see in Genesis 3 the violation of, the rebellion against God, when by just rights God could have and should have consumed Adam and Eve, but he did not.

Our hope is because God has a heart of compassion. Where is your hope today? When we pray for the sick we have hope for healing, but for the Christian, God can heal them temporally or he can heal them perfectly by calling them to himself. We read in Psalm 116:15: " Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." Humanly speaking, we want God to bring temporal healing and keep them with us. This is why, when I get good news about others' healing, it is exciting, but that is only temporal, and we need to see beyond the temporal to the eternal.

There is something about the way God does things that is quite different from the way we would like to have them done. We focus on the here and now. He focuses on eternity, and there is something about God that often puts us in conflict with him, and that is this: God will always sacrifice the temporal for the eternal. God will trade that which is passing away for that which will never pass away.

If you are wondering right now why you are going through whatever it is you are going through, and each of us has trials, temptations, testings, storms that swirl around us, situations we do not understand. If we had it our way, things would change, circumstances would be different, but God often sacrifices the present for the eternal. Seek the Lord, seek his direction, seek his understanding.

Even in the celebration of Advent there is so much that humanly speaking we do not understand, there is so much that reveals that God does not think like we think, that God has a different timetable. He has different values, and I can say it out loud, and you can hear me say it, but then when it actually happens in your own experience, it is not always easy to handle, and that is this, that God will sacrifice the temporal in order to give you that which is eternal. He will sacrifice the here and now for the there and then.

In the first coming of Christ, we have hope, but even in that coming it was misunderstood by those to whom he came. "He came to his own and his own received him not" as we read in John 1:11: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Why? Because they were hoping for a temporal freedom from Rome.

That text from Jeremiah 33:14-16 sounds very much like an earthly kingdom: " Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness." However, that kingdom is coming, but first God starts at the heart. Jesus' first coming is to change us in our hearts, deep inside. He starts at the heart and then he works outward. He starts saving us by planting a seed within us that germinates and roots down and shoots up and bears fruit, but it is the fruit of the kingdom in your attitude that changes actions.

There are many promises in the Bible - Old Testament and New Testament. Peter says in 2 Peter 1:4: " Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."

The very first promise, I remember my days in catechism, the pastor said that these are the prot euanglion, Greek words for first message of good news. Genesis 3:15. God said to the serpent: "And 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."

Human nature always misjudges God. Human nature turns things wrong side out and upside down. The fulfillment is in the New Testament in Galatians 4:4-5: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

Let's go through Genesis 3 beginning with verse 1: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

Satan was crafty. He was cunning. He was deceiving.

In this case, craft and witchcraft would go together because what is going to happen to Eve in relation to Satan speaking through the serpent is that he is going to weave a web of witchcraft. He is going to pull the wool over her eyes. He is going to blind her to truth and at the same time make her think that she can see. Now that is really something if you can do it. But Satan has great power, and the truth is that we don't have to just look back in history to Eve to find the reality illustrated. Every person in this congregation has had the wool pulled over their eyes. We have all been deceived--every time you have been tempted, every time you have sinned. Temptation is motivating a person to do something that is wrong for a good reason. You can always find a good reason to do what is wrong. It is called rationalizing. It politics it is called spin.

We read in verse 2: "The woman said unto the serpent, 'From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.' " She added the three words "or touch it." Be careful when you add to the Word of God. This is why it is important week by week, Sunday by Sunday, in your quiet time, in your devotional time, in your Sunday school classes, in your small groups, in your Bible studies, keep coming back to the Word of God. Let the Scriptures teach you. Let the Word of God mold you.

There is much truth in what Eve said. She knew that she should not eat of that tree. Now, how on earth is the serpent going to get this woman to disobey the one commandment God gave her? How is he going to get her to eat of the one tree she shouldn't eat from?

In verse 4, we read: "The serpent said to the woman, 'You surely shall not die!' " He was saying that God is lying to you. God is not telling you the truth. Yet, what the serpent said was a bald-faced lie, but if it is true then God is a liar. This is why Satan is called the adversary. He has an adversarial relationship to God. He is antithetical. That is why when he sends his prophet on earth, he is call anti-Christ, against the Anointed One of God.

Now, how many times in your experience and mine, when I know what is right and I know what is wrong, isn't it the wrong that seems so attractive, and the right seems boring? That is evidence of the bewitching power, the deceiving power, of the crafty one - and we have all fallen prey to it. This is why we need the Word of God. We need to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another - because we forget. We get distracted. We go astray.

Now he is going to spin the web further, and he is going to cast a shadow on God's motivation, on God's character. In other words, he is going to say: "God does not care about you. He is not looking out for you, I am. I am telling you that you can be blessed and have good things. God is depriving you. That is why he said no." Look at verse 5: "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

There is a lot of truth there, but there is subtle deception. Actually, if Eve eats of this, she will become blind to the truth and wide open to darkness. She will become a child of the devil and bear children to the same. By the way, this is the original sin that is taking place here, and the web that Satan is spinning is designed to pull her away from trust in God. Unbelief, mistrust in God is the essence of original sin, and it is a battle we fight again, and again, and again.

Notice that Satan's craft has been successful. The deception has been complete. Look at verse six: "When the woman saw..." Now she isn't really seeing. She thinks she sees, but she is really blind. When she saw, what did she see? She saw a tree that was good for food. Was that tree good for food? No, but she saw it that way. She was enchanted. She was under a spell. She was deceived.

We point that out, not to single her out, but to declare our oneness with her in the natural. We are very, very easily deceived. She saw that it was a delight to the eyes. She could envision herself becoming as wise as God. Would it make her wise as God? No, it would make her as foolish as the devil. But she saw evil as good and good as evil. That is the enchanting power of Satan. And I have to say that we have all fallen prey. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

She saw that the tree was desirable to make one wise. The spell had been cast. "She took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." Verse 7 says: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings."

Shame enters. Now the first human religion takes place. All human religions are built on this foundation.   They try to cover up their shame. Work righteousness. They sewed fig leaves together to cover their shame. Religion is man doing something to please God, man climbing the ladder up to God, man trying to change himself to be acceptable to God.

And then something happens. In the very onset of darkness, destruction, deception and evil in the human race, God could have rained down fire from heaven and burned them to a crisp.

We read in verse 8: "They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." When God created Adam and Eve they would run to him. Something has happened inside. One of the reasons it is so hard for you and I to worship God even when we gather for worship is that in the natural we tend to run from God not toward him.

"Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of   You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.' And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate" (verses 9-12).

When we start blaming someone else for our choices we become childish and immature. All Adam could do was blame - blame Eve and then to blame God for giving this woman to him.

Continuing in verse 13 we read: "Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' And the woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She could not point to Adam, though Adam should have done something, but he didn't. And that pattern is so natural to us men. We say nothing. We do nothing. And then we wash our hands of everything - when God has made us responsible.

We read in verse 14 and 15: "The Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly shall you go, And dust shall you eat All the days of your life; [and now the first promise] And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruises you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.' "

God could have given them crushing punishment, but in this first promise we see that God will take that crushing punishment. The hymn says: "How can it be that you my King would die for me?" We are the guilty ones. He is holy. In verse 15 we have the essence of God's plan of salvation - to send his Son, who will take his heel and crush the head, the dominion, the authority of that serpent. Yes, even as stepping on the head of a snake, the fangs can puncture your heal, he was punctured with the venom of your sin and mine, and it killed him.

What God could have done he chose not to do, and what he did instead is awesome. Amazing love how can it be that the King would die in the place of a traitor, a rebel that is me, that is you, that is us.

Way back then at the very beginning, in the context of original sin, God overcame. Satan though he was pretty smart, crafty, in choosing to lead the human race into rebellion against God by selecting the woman. God overthrows the devil at his own game. God Almighty chooses the woman to be the channel through which he will send his only begotten Son, and in and through Mary, Satan himself will be crushed and defeated and destroyed. And what he brings is offered to you if you will trust God and receive it as a gift.

Have you trusted him? Are you continuing to trust him? Every day we have opportunities to turn from the enchantment, the temptation, the power, the deception, the spin of the world, the flesh and the devil, to trust in the word of God, in the promises of God.

Let's determine brothers and sisters that we will have our hope built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, not trusting in anything else but only in his blood.

PRAYER: Spirit of God, you have many things to say to us, but most of all we pray that you would deliver us from the deception of darkness and doing it our way, to trust in you and do it Christ's way, God's way, the eternal way, and in him and in him alone find our hope. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.