Merry Christmas. The Savior is come. The King of Kings, the prince of peace, the Mighty God is with us. This advent season we have been exploring the promised children of Scripture. We have looked at Abraham’s promised child, Isaac; we have explored Elizabeth & Zechariah’s promised child, John the Baptist; we peered into the child Hannah promised back to God, Samuel and today we are going to look at the Savior who has come in the flesh, Emmanuel – God with us.
You may think that the natural place to go is to the child promised to Mary, the mother of Jesus. But this Christmas morning we are going to look at the child promised to Satan. What, you may ask, a child promised to Satan? I didn’t know that Satan had been promised a child. Truly, he was, although not as you think. When most of us think of a promise given to someone, it is a good promise. Especially when we think of a child being promised to someone, that is a blessing, a gift, someone who will come along and continue the line of the one who has received the promise. But not Satan.
In Genesis 3:14 God begins to speak to the serpent, after Adam and Eve have sinned, and he makes a promise to Satan, point of fact, he makes 6 promises to the serpent, and one of these promises includes a child who will come and destroy Satan and his work. Gen. 3:14 begins with these words, “The Lord God said to the serpent…” There are a few preliminary considerations we should address, to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
Firstly, The Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, the great I am (Ex 3:14), the creator of the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). The One God (James 2:19) who is above every other God (Ps 95:3), the ruler of all creation (1Chr 29:12-13), the sustainer of life (Heb 1:3), the author and perfecter of faith (Heb 12:2), the amazingly holy One (Lev 11:45, 1Pt 1:16), this God, of whom there are no others (Isa 45:18) in comparison, is speaking and is in utter control of the situation.
Secondly, this God who is in control, is speaking to the serpent. The serpent, not humanity, is being addressed directly. The serpent is receiving the words of the Lord, although humanity definitely is included in them, as we will see. But the very statements spoken are for the serpent. Who is this serpent? There are a lot of ideas about this passage. There are many who downplay evil, or personify it as an invisible force, but what does this scripture say about this serpent? In Rev. 12:9, the apostle John records this revelation from the Lord writing about the great cosmic battle between God and Satan and the Lord’s plan for humanity’s redemption. This is what he writes, “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him…17Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.” God is addressing His archenemy, the one who attacks his children and his people
Thirdly and finally, when God speaks, his words are true and must come to pass. For this I turn to Heb. 6:17-18. In context, the author of Hebrews is arguing the certainty of God’s word to Abraham and hence his promise to redeem us. In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath, 18 so that through two unchangeable things (the oath and promise), in which it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us.
Summarizing our preliminary observations, we hold these truths – God is in control, there is none like him and when we speaks, his word is true and comes to pass, and Satan or the devil is the recipient of the particular words of God we are going to explore this morning. So what were God’s words of promise to Satan? First is a statement of fact, followed by 6 promises:
The statement of fact is “Because you have done this…” Because you have deceived the woman into eating the fruit, because you lied about the word of the Lord, because you denied God’s sovereignty and instruction, because you have brought shame and separation into the world. These are all included in the this which Satan accomplished. Deception is lying and he is the Father of all Lies (Jn 8:44), he calls the Lord’s right of rule into effect in verse 4 saying You will not surely die, God’s words aren’t true, they have no authority over you. And the shame and separation that comes upon the man and the woman because of their new found “knowledge” actually drives them apart from one another and causes them to hide from God – shame, fear and separation. All of this is the work of Satan, and all of it is still his work, for God brings redemption, restoration, reconciliation, truth and authority.
So if you see the other at work in your life. If you see, shame, fear, separation, rebellion against God’s word, lying and deception, then recognize them first and foremost as the work of Satan and then rejoice in these promises God has made about this kind of behavior.
The first of the promises to Satan – Cursed are you. Cursed, judged are you. Another way of understanding a curse upon someone is that the one who is cursing another is saying, “I will bring trouble on you.” I, God Almighty, will judge you and bring great calamity upon you. You will not stand, you will not survive, and you will not persevere in these ways. You are cursed.
The second and third promises are closely related, so I will address them together – upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. These twin promises of God are symbolic, for no snake eats dust, we are all aware of that; furthermore, the curse is spoken to Satan, not to snakes in general. So what do these promises symbolize? In the ancient world, to crawl upon your belly was a form of humiliation and submission. In fact it is still that way in many cultures in the east today. In Zambia where we lived, those who wanted to go in to meet with the chief were required to crawl in on their hands and knees to the foot of the throne. And this corresponds to eating dust as a form of humiliation. Psa. 72:9 May his foes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust. Is. 49:23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame. The Serpent is promised double humiliation and that he will be in submission to the God who governs all life.
The fourth promise is that there will be enmity between the serpent and the woman, between your offspring and hers. Literally God will place hatred between Satan and humanity and humanity and Satan. There will be active hostility between the two parties. And isn’t that born out in life. Don’t we, as humans actively abhor those actions of Satan we see in the world? Don’t we abhor lying and dishonesty? Don’t we abhor what the Belhar confession calls “the sinful separation of humanity?” Don’t we abhor those who refuse to submit to their leaders, when those leaders are duly and legitimately elected? Don’t we abhor these acts of Satan? But the promise has a flip side, just as we hate these acts of evil, just as we hate the death and destruction which flows in Satan’s wake, so too does Satan hate humanity. He accuses us before God trying to defame us as the first chapter of Job aptly illustrates with Satan challenging Job’s very character before the King Almighty. The same truth about Satan’s hatred of humanity is echoed in Zechariah 3:1, Then [the Angel] showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. In fact he hates and accuses God’s people so much that he makes war against them according to Rev 12:17, which we read earlier. In fact, he prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour (1Pt 5:8). God promises that Satan will be out to destroy us
But this is where the fifth and sixth promises of God come to play. Let me treat the last promise first, for our sake we will call it the fifth promise of God, even though it is the last promise God makes to Satan. It is that Satan will strike the heel of the woman’s offspring. He will seek to inflict damage, but it will be minimal. That doesn’t mean it can’t be deadly, for we all know that a snake bite in the heel by a viper or a cobra is no laughing matter. He will strike, kind of as a reaction as a defensive posture, as one who has been driven down the food chain and is striking trying to ‘get back’ at those farther up. I am reminded of a day when we were in the bush learning from my language teacher sitting under the shade of a tree. Morgan was walking around in the sand when Jen started yelling “Snake, snake.” I was lost in another language and didn’t respond until she cried, “Linyoka.” Up I ran, with my teacher as this little twig snake slithered away and the eyes on my instructor grew large, it was a poisonous snake, a very poisonous snake, responsible for more deaths in our province than any other snakes. As we got it out and started to kill it, beating its head into the ground and crushing it, he said repeatedly, “This is Satan.”
That picture stands in my mind, as we look at God’s final promise to the humiliated, subjected, cursed enemy. Here is God’s promise of a child to the Serpent, “[The woman will have a child and] he will strike your head.” You are going to be hostile to one another, you are going to hate one another, you are going to war against one another, you Satan are even going to be able to inflict pain upon him, but that will be nothing compared to what the woman’s offspring will do to you. He (singular) will strike your head, he will crush your head, and he will damage you in the most important part of your body, and you will strike back from and inferior position trying to defend yourself. That is what happened that day in the Zambian desert. The snake tried to defend itself, but it was of no comparison to the skill of my language teacher who beat it into submission and eventually into death.
God has made a promise to Satan that he will be destroyed. And the disciple John paints the same picture again but in different inspired words when he writes, Rev. 20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while…7 When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison8 and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle…9 They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10 And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
This is the reason we gather this Christmas morn, for the seed of the woman has come, the one to crush the head of the serpent was born to a virgin named Mary some 2000 years ago and his name was Jesus = he saves. And the Scripture tells us that of his kingdom there will be no end.
In Conclusion, this is the Christmas message, the promises of God to Satan - his humiliation, his submission to God, his hatred, all of it will be destroyed for his head has been crushed, and the Savior of the World, the seed of Eve has come, and we are now endowed with the same power as Christ, contemplate this final verse as we enter into Communion:
Romans 16:20 The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
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