A New Year's Sermon

Sermon—The Serpent and the Savior

M. Heckel, 1-2-10

I. Intro: We’ve all made New Years resolutions. Mine every year is to lose some weight. One of my students put his on facebook: “Don’t mess up.” I commented “Good luck with that one.” What if our New Year’s resolution was to keep the main things the main things? Then maybe all these other things would take care of themselves. I might be able to deal with stress better, sleep better, and quite overeating. My student might not worry so much about messing up. Well there’s good news this morning. We are going to read about the main thing and that’s the gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior.

II. The Serpent and the Seed of the Woman. Genesis 3:14-16.

A. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve to be as God, and decide good and evil for themselves.

B. First Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but nothing happened. She gave the fruit to Adam who ate, and then they knew they were naked and hid from God when they heard him walking in the garden.

C. When God declares judgment for sin he begins with the serpent:

1. v. 14, The serpent is cursed “above all” animals. It becomes a symbol of the fall, and explains our aversion to it.

2. The serpent is cursed to crawl on its belly, which implies that it is now a legless dragon.

3. v. 15, God will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

4. One of the ways the world wages war is by trying to convince us that there is no antithesis. It is up to the seed of the woman to maintain the antithesis today and fight the good fight.

5. Right after the fall, God announces that there will be a decisive battle where the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent and the serpent will bruise his heel.

6. Who gets the worst of it? Would you rather have your head bruised or your heel.

7. The head is a symbol of authority. The seed of the women will step on the serpents head and crush his authority but will pay a price. His heel will be bruised.

8. When was this prophecy fulfilled? Before we fast forward let’s take a look at one more aspect of the fall.

9. v. 16, God will multiply the woman’s pain of giving birth to her seed.

III. The Woman and the Dragon. Revelation 12:1-6.

A. vv. 1-2, Here is the woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet wearing a twelve starred crown for the twelve tribes of Israel.

B. She will fulfill the hopes of God’s people by giving birth but it will come with great pain as God had said. Sin causes pain but God will accomplish our redemption through the pain of the woman.

C. vv. 3-4, But there is an immediate threat to God’s promise. A great red dragon who sweeps a third of the stars out of the sky and is ready to pounce and devour her child.

D. vv. 5-6, She gives birth to a male child who was caught up to the throne of God and the woman flees to the wilderness.

IV. The Dragon and the Christ. Revelation 12:7-10.

A. vv. 7-9, Who is this dragon? It is that “ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.” It is the serpent in the garden who lost his legs.

B. The enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent actually originated with a war in heaven. The Archangel Michael and his fellows angels do battle with the dragon and his angels and Satan falls from heaven.

C. After his fall the dragon succeeds in bringing about our fall. But he falls from heaven in another way.

D. v. 10, A loud voice in heaven announces that “the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ” has come, and has thrown down the accuser of the brothers.

E. Christ has bruised his heel on the serpent’s head! The authority of Christ has smashed the serpent’s authority.

V. The Dragon and the Christians. Revelation 12:11-17.

A. v. 11, This means we can overcome the dragon. But what does that look like?

B. “They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto death.”

C. After Jesus rose from the dead the Roman soldiers who had been stationed at the tomb told the Jewish leaders that the tomb was empty. So the Jews and Romans spread the story that the disciples stole the body. But the disciples effectively overcame this report by dying for their testimony that he had risen. In all cases but one, the disciples suffered gruesome executions at the hands of Roman rather than deny their experience with the bodily-resurrected savior.

D. Blaise Pascal said, “Believe those witnesses who get their throats cut.”

E. This raises the question for us today. Do we believe that the shed blood of Christ washes away our sin? Do we have a testimony that is more precious to us than life itself? If we do, we can win the dragon fight. If we do not we are still on the side of the dragon. There is no middle ground.

F. This text challenges us to ask ourselves, “Which side of the antithesis am I on?” Are we willing to die for the disciples’ testimony that Jesus rose bodily from the dead?

G. Dealing with doubt: There are many ministers today who do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead in his physical body (Sproul oridination story). The disciples didn’t believe it at first. Thomas said that he would be a skeptic until he put his fingers in Christ’s wounds. The disciples weren’t gullible. They didn’t fully believe Mary Magdalene until they say Jesus for themselves. After that, they couldn’t be stopped. If the tomb hadn’t been empty the authorities could have provided the body and squelched their preaching. So they tried to defeat the disciples through force, but they overcame because “they loved not their lives unto death.”

H. Illustration: I recently taught a history class at MoBap Univ., where we discussed the historical claims of Christianity. I pointed out that Christianity is unique among world religions because it is founded upon a single historical claim—the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. One of my students gave a presentation on historical objectivity and ended by saying that since everyone is affected by their own subjectivity we can’t tell anybody that they’re wrong. When it came to the question and answer time some of the students challenged him by asking whether someone who denies the resurrection is wrong. He assured us that he believed in the resurrection, but he couldn’t tell someone else they were wrong for rejecting it. Then I added that he had the Word of God to stand on. But he said that he didn’t see God write the Bible. Then I pointed out that the apostles of Jesus Christ died so that he could call the Bible the word of God and he didn’t know what to say. They overcame by the word of their testimony.

I. Now that the woman has flown to the wilderness, Satan is making war against the rest of her offspring.

J. Are we ready to begin this New Year with a testimony on our lips, with some fire in our belly, and some fight in our gut?

K. v. 17, What do we fight with? We “keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

VI. Application: Where do we begin? Here’s a good New Years Resolution: I Peter 2:2-3: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk , that by it you may grow up to salvation—if indeed you have tasted that they Lord is good.” Have you tasted that the Lord is good? Then let’s wash everything down this year with the milk of the word of God.

VII. Summary: Then we can’t resist the world’s temptation to forget about the fight. We can keep the antithesis between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, we can overcome the world through our testimony of Christ, and we can truly live because we have something for which we are willing to die.