The Curse Of Death - Part 2 Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD, USA

www.mycrossway.org

View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118

I want to start this morning by reflecting on a few things happening in our world. As I thought about it, they are all closely tied to where we are in our study of Genesis. In this reflection, let me remind you that we are in the shadow of our Thanksgiving meals and the approach of the celebration of our Lord’s birth.

Adam and Eve had much to be thankful for, but little understanding of the blessings that were around them in the Garden and in their relationship with the Lord God. It wasn’t until they sold their birthright to the serpent for a bite of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that they began to see to realize what was lost.

Thanksgiving was instituted as a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863, to remind us of the tremendous blessings that were given to our nation by God. Those original settlers and pilgrims fled from the religious oppression. It was here they found liberty in the midst of their struggle to survive. A. Of the most interesting quotes Lincoln gave about thanksgiving is this, “The shepherd drives the wolves from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.”

Lincoln would be perplexed by where we are as a country. Quite frankly, I think many of us are perplexed and would never dream where we are even 5 years ago. As I have reflected on things I believer we are approaching a point as a country where we will realize how much we had to be thankful for in our lives and the shocking realization of all that has been taken from us.

To put it quite plainly, we are being lied to by those in authority. That’s been the case for a long time, but never more ominously than recent history. When shutdowns happened last year, we almost universally shared the responsibility to help based on the information that was presented. When it became clear that information was deception, we changed direction. The church is the hope of the world and how the church responds in the future will be critical. Our greatest threat today is not racism, it is not global warming, or the “unvaccinated.” Our greatest threat is an ungodly government.

The Bible tells us that the role of government is to restrain evil against its citizenry. It is not to restrain its citizens against evil. When that happens, Isaiah 5:20 tells us there are serious spiritual implications. We live in a day when criminals feels unstrained to conduct evil and police and law abiding citizens are restrained to oppose evil. We live in a day that those who uphold their liberty of medical decisions are being persecuted. Threats of jobs, medical care, travel, the ability to buy and sell, and basic liberty are all being leveraged against a population. We live in an age where pastors are being arrested and placed in jail for speaking out against this. We live in an age where the full truth of this virus and their jab is being suppressed.

I want you to know without a doubt that all of this is supernatural, not political, and these events are the actions of demonic forces. Satan is the father of lies and there has never been more deception than the days that we are living today. Yet we have so much to be thankful for to our Lord and Savior. These things may shake our liberties, but they will not sway our faith or the strength of the Lord.

At any point in the history of redemption, believing the Word of God meant believing everything God had said up to that time. We believe the whole of Scripture because we live when Scripture is complete. The Bible does not go from error to truth, but it does go from incompleteness to completeness. People who lived in the time of Genesis couldn’t believe things that hadn’t been written and hadn’t been revealed, but faith was believing whatever it was that God had said. Whatever the body of divine revelation was, faith was accepting and believing that, having trust in the Word of God, having trust in the promise of God that whatever God says is true. As we are going to see this week and the following and final message of Genesis Chapter 3, we are living in an age that is the result of sin and rebellion against God, but we also live with tremendous hope. Adam and Eve were facing God’s judgement for their sin, but even in His judgement, God displays His Grace, His Mercy, and His Love. Let’s read together verses 16-19