The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
I have been seeking the Lord about 2022, and I want you to know I feel good about what is coming. I am not saying trials are going to be over, what I hear the Lord saying, is that He is going to show up for His people, and in His people this year. Instead of surviving we will be thriving.
There is still going to be Covid, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and God knows what else, but in the midst of it, God is going to reveal Himself in and through His people in a greater way this year.
The verse I ended the year with, is the verse I begin the year with.
PPT 1 Text
Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
For those who haven't gotten our devotionals from the past year or read them, I want to quote from part of it here, because I believe it is the word of the Lord for 2022:
"After listing all the terrible judgments found in the book of Revelation, the Apostle John closed the book with, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Not only is it John's closing sentiment, but it is more appropriately to be considered as the final words of God to mankind, found in the bible. God wishes His grace to be with us all.
Undeserved, loving favor. What a wonderful way to end His book of instructions, with the desire that His blessing would be on the heads of all people who would ever live.
This blessing is especially appropriate for those who will live through the horrors described in the book of Revelation. While you may not avoid them, you can still walk in, and enjoy His favor in difficult times. It may not stop the rain from falling, but it is the promise that He will be with you when the rains come."
We are going to talk about what it means for the grace of the Lord Jesus to be with us all, and one aspect of it in particular. That aspect is found in today's message title:
PPT 2 Message Title
"The Seed of the woman shall bruise satan on the head."
This is of course taken from Genesis 3:15 which says:
PPT 3 text
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."
Let's go back to Rev. 22:21 and we will tie this all together for you shortly.
Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Let me say this about that verse.
It is both a prayer from man and a promise from God.
It is a statement of fact
It is a prayer from man. This is a familiar way to end a letter in the bible
PPT 4 text
2 Thessalonians 3:18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
I will show it again in another verse shortly, but realize it is a prayer sent in the love of God to bless the people of God. It is reflective of John's prayerful wish for those who would read his book.
But it is also a promise from God. John is not simply expressing his heartfelt prayer for the church, but I also believe God is speaking through him, and communicating a promise of what He will do. His grace will be abundant and a source of supply in difficult times. This thought is echoed in the old hymn: "When all the world around my soul gives sway, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I'll stand all other ground is sinking sand."
God and His favor will be with you.
Now let's talk about this prayer as a statement of fact, and how it relates to Genesis 3:15.
Genesis 3:15 is of course taking about Jesus and the devil.
The devil would bruise Jesus heel. Think about all that bruising entailed. Bruising summed up the torture murder of our Lord, and all the horrible parts of it.
However, the text makes very clear, that what happened to Jesus pales in comparison to what happens to the devil. A bruised heel does not compare in meaning to a bruised head.
If a bruised heel means torture murder, what does a bruised head entail for the devil?
So what does that have to do with Revelation 22:21? Some of you are already tracking with me, others need to catch up, let me make it very plain for you:
The "devil head crushing spirit of Jesus Christ resides also in His people."
The grace of the Lord Jesus being with us means in part, the head crushing power of Jesus is in us.
Some of you need me to connect the dots a little better.
Let me show you Genesis 3:15, and Revelation 22:21 together in one verse in the bible.
PPT 5 text
Romans 16:20 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
Interesting how the apostle Paul linked these two ideas together. He not only says Jesus does some head crushing but by implication he says we will do it also!
I want to read what one of my commentaries says about the grace of the Lord Jesus being with us.
PPT 6
John Gills Commentary:
... "let the fulness of grace in Christ be the object of your trust and confidence; may you have a supply from it to enable you to overcome every temptation, to exercise every grace, and discharge every duty."
Notice how he talks about grace being a source of supply.
When John says the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you, He is talking about a source of supply.
This morning we are talking about it as a source of supply to overcome, and in particular the devil, and all his works.
I want us to look at two interesting scriptures that highlight this truth, one in the OT one in the New.
We start in the Old.
PPT 7-9
1 Samuel 5:2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon.
1 Samuel 5:3 When the Ashdodites arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and set him in his place again.
1 Samuel 5:4 But when they arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold; only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.
1 Samuel 5:5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor all who enter Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
1 Samuel 5:6 Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the Ashdodites, and He ravaged them and smote them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territories.
1 Samuel 5:7 When the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, "The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for His hand is severe on us and on Dagon our god."
How does that relate to us, and the grace of the Lord Jesus being with us?
We are the mobile version of the Ark of the Covenant. The presence of God is in His people.
The Philistines brought the Ark of the covenant to the house of their god as some sort of trophy. But while it was there, God destroyed their idol Dagon. The Ark is an incredible representation of believers in Christ. In it contained, the law, Aaron's rod which budded showing that he was specially chosen of God, and manna the bread of heaven. Finally, while the law was inside it, it was covered and overshadowed by the Mercy Seat.
As believers we have the word of God in us, we eat the true bread which came down from heaven, we have tokens that we are chosen of Him. Where the Ark was the tangible presence of God also was. The power that destroyed Dagon, lives in us also.
Now I want to show you one more passage in the NT and it will help us wrap up things for today.
PPT 10 text
1 Corinthians 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.
I don't fully understand all the ramifications of this verse, but one thing seems to be clear. When there are two people living in one home, and one is saved and the other is not, this scripture tells us the spouse that is providing the greater influence is the saved one.
But that comes with a caveat, you have to exercise that influence, you have to activate it. The devil is a bully, and he will bully you around if you don't put him in his place. As believers we need to believe greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world. We need to activate God's promise.
So lets talk about activating grace.
Close: Lots of promises. What activates them, is grace and Faith.
Note to Pastors: I ended the sermon with an illustration. I brought a can of Bondo to the service. For those who don't know Bondo is a product that is used in car repairs. It is a two part substance, one is a peanut butter like substance, or if you will thick and mud like. The other is a small tube of a liquid activator. Without the activator Bondo has little value in dent repair, with it, it turns the mud like substance very hard and then it can be sanded, painted, and finished.
I explained that the mud like substance represents the promises in the bible, for them to become more useful to us they need to be mixed with an activator. I then explained that faith is God's activator. When we believe what the bible says, it takes the promises out of the book and makes them real in our lives. Further our faith should be based on the fact that all these things come to us not simply by our faith, but primarily through the grace of God - His undeserved loving kindness towards us. (Eph 2:8-9)
We need to walk and declare what the bible says about us. We have the head crushing grace of the Lord Jesus with us and in us.
We are what God says we are, We have what God says we have, because Jesus purchased it for us at Calvary.
We are the seed of the woman, and the grace that was in Christ, is also in us, and satan will be crushed under ou feet.
