Hope In The Face Of Death Series

Jesus: God’s Promise of Hope for a World in Need

Hope in the Face of Death

Introduction

“I don’t like the idea of being picked as a number.”

"It began with a syringe in my arm," he said,

[In-between] was a special meal of his choice two steaks, a baked potato, salad, bread, apple pie, a soft drink and potato chips.

"and today I have a needle in my arm. I have come full circle and am at peace with it."

the infant was fussing because he had a cold, just like the other children in the apartment.

, Mr. Nowak put his head on the table and sobbed.

"It’s tough, but it’s better than not knowing where they are."

""If something like that were to happen to my children, I would hope somebody would do something like this for them."

, Mr. Gilbreath wanted to make things right with God.

"Whitey was like a dad to me. I dont understand how someone could kill somebody like that. Whitey was a good man. He didn’t deserve that."

I can’t believe I did what I did," "I loved them all," Regarding any punishment that may come for what he did, Henderson said: "I deserve it."

"God will handle this,". "The price they’re going to pay is when they face God."

Ge 2:15--2:25

The Fall of Man

Ge 3:1-13

ALL 3 are guilty, and as such, are CURSED, directly or indirectly

The reasons for the curse were: NO ONE LISTENED TO GOD!! (Kaiser, p. 78) Dan, think of the Mount of Transfiguration . . .

Ge 3:14--24

This is really a sad moment in the history of mankind. As bad as Osama is, as bad as those executed last week, as bad as those who committed murder:

Adam and Eve, were, too. For when they sinned—not murder, but something just as sinister and evil: placing themselves above God—death came into the world.

Physical Death (for sure)

Spiritual Death (more importantly)

They were condemned to die.

And so are we? Do you feel like a person on executioners row? I don’t often. But it doesn’t matter how I feel. Reality is not based on either my emotions or my awareness. I, like Adam and Eve, am a sinner. And so are you. And we deserve to die. Both deaths.

BUT, there is hope—I don’t know if you caught it:

Big Idea: In the Face of Death, God Gives the World His Promise of Hope

Let’s read that message of hope again:

READ Ge 3:15

Does this sound like HOPE to you?

Transition: It is a message, or a PROMISE, of Hope but it does sound a little strange, and it really isn’t spelled out very much. And that is the first thing we notice about God’s promise, as it appears on the stage of human history:

1. His Promise of Hope Comes as an Unexplained Mystery

Dad’s Story of religious plaques, a fishing pole, and a bullhead.

In a similar way, God has given humanity a promise of hope, that they really can’t understand fully. It is a mystery.

What Eve MIGHT be able to understand: basic victory over the snake

What only comes out later in history is the meaning—which really is unfolded through history and the Bible—and what we will be getting a “bird’s eye view” of over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas.

The identity of the Serpent/snake

In Romans and Revelation, we see two apostles of Christ referring to the Serpent as—what many of us now know—Satan, the devil, our adversary.

He has been condemned and conquered with finality: “eat dust”

But the GOOD news, for US, is not just his conquering, it is HOW:

Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

In the FIRST part of the verse:

There will be a war of hostility between the offspring/SEED of the woman—ALL her descendants, and that of the serpent.

In the SECOND part of the verse:

In stead of referring to “all the womans descendants”, and the serpent’s “descendants”, the writer of Genesis—Moses—through the inspiriation of God

SINGLES OUT some MALE DESCENDANT that will DEFEAT, or CRUSH, Satan into total defeat.

While it does not appear so in the Bible, in the movie of the PASSION, we see that imagery as Jesus is praying in the garden of Gethsemane

But the fact that it is, IN FACT, Jesus, is made plain in the Bible. What was only a mystery to Eve and the world for millennia was made plain in Christ.

For not only did he show his divine connection and power, as he calmed the storm and drove out demons with ease, but when he died on the cross,