The First Mention of the Gospel

02/15/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  The first mention of the Gospel

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:15

            Message of the verse:  “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.’”

            “God’s words to Satan (v-15) are called the protevangelium, ‘the first Gospel,” because this is the first announcement of the coming Redeemer found in the Bible.”

            Paul wrote in Galatians 4:1 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” 

             The word of enmity can mean hatred, it can mean hostility, and it can mean bad feelings, and so if you look at the history between Satan and the Lord Jesus Christ from the Scriptures you can see all of these things, but that is certainly not all of the story, for if you look throughout history there has always been hatred between those who belong to Satan and those who belong to God.  One example would be the Muslims and their hatred for the true people of God, and how they have killed believers whenever they get a chance to do so.  Any believer who has been killed for the cause of Christ can be seen through the eyes of this verse.  Of course the best example of what this verse is truly written for is the crucification of Jesus Christ, and this is where Satan bruised the heel of Christ, but Christ, through His victory on the cross has crushed the head of Satan, for Satan’s fate was settled at the cross and one day soon he will be put into the lake of fire as written about in the last parts of the book of the Revelation.

            When Jesus was on this earth he spoke to some Pharisees and told them that “you are of your father the Devil,” so indicating that the Devil has offspring just as seen in this verse.  God has called all those who have been born-again through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ His children or His offspring, which is also what this verse is speaking of.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Whenever a child is born into this world it can be called a miracle, but the bigger miracle is when a person is born from above through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, for when that happens that person goes from being a child of Satan to becoming a child of God, and that miracle happened to me on the 26^th of January in the year 1974, and that was truly the biggest miracle that has ever happened to me or ever will.

The Word of God has been refreshing to my heart as I read and studied it this morning. 

My Steps of Faith Today:  To continue to trust the Lord to lead me and to direct my paths, and to also have the Lord teach me contentment.  Continue to trust the Lord with the decision of what job to work at, whether to stay at the church or to go and work with Tim in the future, and also to continue to trust the Lord with the investment that we have with Andrew Lech.