The Contrasting Curses

[0:00] but it continues. And I'm not going to rehearse the outlines that it's been so far because it's getting longer and longer. But last week we came upon the coerced confession and studied how man and his wife were motivated by fear in front of God Almighty to confess to him what they had done.

[0:22] And we noticed that fear is a good thing. We noticed also that God is a great confronter. And he doesn't allow sin and evil just to go by without confronting them.

[0:33] And it's a blessing if you're a child of God that he will come after you and confront you and say, where are you? I expect to have fellowship with you. I expect to talk with you.

[0:43] What have you done? And it's his will to get you back. It's his will to be with you, not that you run and hide amongst the trees of the garden. And so he confronts. And then we noticed, though, in their confession that it was lacking some things.

[0:57] It was lacking personal responsibility. It was lacking a broken and a contrite heart. And they were shifting the blame and pointing the finger. And there was a pride inside of them that did not want to accept their guilt.

[1:11] And it just sounds like my biography. It sounds too much like me. So today we're going to move into verse number 14 forward. And what follows the sin and what follows their disobedience and their confrontation and confession is judgment.

[1:31] And it's judgment on the man and his wife and on many other things. And we're going to see that today. It's judgment of God always follows sin. It's not always immediate.

[1:41] Here it's face-to-face confrontation. Let's deal with this right here and right now. But it doesn't always happen that way. You read through your Bible. You'll read through kings who they didn't get what they deserved right away at all.

[1:55] Some of them reigned for years and even decades without the judgment of God coming. But it came. And it came in their life. And it came in the lives of others after them, depending on the course of their sin.

[2:09] It doesn't always happen immediately. Sometimes it's years later. Sometimes it's months later. You think of David and Bathsheba and how he committed adultery. And then he committed murder indirectly, having her husband killed.

[2:21] And it was months and months and months before the child was delivered, before the prophet of God showed up to point the finger and declare his guilt. And so God does punish sin.

[2:32] The punishment, though, in that case was months after the case, the fact. But sometimes it's immediate. I'm reminded in Acts chapter 5 of Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, how they lied and said that they received this much money and gave it at Peter's feet and dropped dead on the floor right there in front of them.

[2:52] Just God judged the sin on the moment. And judgment follows disobedience because it's part of God's character. Because God is faithful.

[3:03] Our God is a faithful God. And it's not just to you. He's faithful to me. Yeah, that's true. Thank God for that. But it's his character. He is faithful. It's an attribute of God.

[3:14] And one of the ways is he's faithful to judge. He will. He's a just God and a righteous God. And therefore it's in his nature to judge. And that he's going to do it.

[3:26] He can't just not do it. He's faithful to bless us. He's faithful with mercy for us. He's faithful to deliver us from temptation and make a way to escape.

[3:36] And if we confess our sins, he's faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In so many ways he's faithful, but he's also faithful to punish and to judge the evil doers.

[3:50] The Bible says he rewardeth the proud doer and he rewardeth the fool and transgressors. And he's already in this moment as we read, he's already dealt with Lucifer and his rebellion.

[4:02] And so when Adam and Eve transgressed, the only command he gave them, he faithfully responds with judgment. Sin against God carries a penalty.

[4:14] It carries a cost. And so that this morning makes me very, very thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ for taking the penalty for my sin. I don't even want to know what the list is in front of God.

[4:28] My sins. But he took it. He bore it in his own body on the tree. And Jesus Christ, the Bible says that for he hath made him to be sin for us.

[4:39] Who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I mentioned it in Sunday school that Christ died for our sins. Peter says that Christ also hath once suffered for sins.

[4:54] So thankful this morning. I'm thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ because I know God punishes sin. And he did punish my sin. He's already punished it. Thank God.

[5:06] So this morning I've got, when we read through verses 14 through 19, we're going to see curses and consequences. And let's read this passage together and then we'll come back and look at a portion of it.

[5:22] Verse 14. The woman at the end of verse 13 says, The serpent beguiled me, as she points the finger toward this serpent and says, And I did eat.

[5:32] And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

[5:47] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.

[6:01] In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it.

[6:16] Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.

[6:27] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground. For out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

[6:39] Curses and consequences. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you'll move now, and that you'll get into this next half hour or so. And Lord, open our ears, and our understanding, and teach us, and preach to us.

[6:55] Speak to our hearts the words of God. And Lord, may your people receive, and understand, and take heed. May Jesus Christ be pleased.

[7:06] May he be exalted. He's done a work that no one in here could do. And he's redeemed us from the curse. And so, Lord, may he, it's my desire to elevate him.

[7:21] And Lord, help us to be afraid of sin. Help us to see the pain that it causes, and the judgment that it will bring. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

[7:32] Amen. Amen. So, curses and consequences, you see both in these verses we read, these six verses, what God deals out in response to the sin. And he begins with the serpent, and he goes to the woman, to the man, and ends talking about the ground and even death.

[7:49] And I'm going to split these two up, and really just this morning, focus on the curses. And what I want to call them is the contrasting curses.

[7:59] And I'll explain why I call it that as we go along. But for God to curse something is no small thing. It's not an accident.

[8:10] It's not an overreaction. It's not the Lord just shows up and he just gets mad. And to just curse you. That's what man does. He curses another man if he even had the power to do it.

[8:21] He does with his mouth, but with no real power behind it. But when the Lord does it, it's real. It's not just a reaction. It's a real thing that has real effects and real consequences as we know based on this passage.

[8:39] I mean, so much of our lives go right back to here. Now, you don't want to be under a curse of God. You don't want to be anywhere near it if you can avoid it.

[8:51] The opposite of a curse is blessing. They're two different things. And this is God's nature. He has love and he has hatred.

[9:03] He has mercy and he has wrath. He has blessing and he has cursing. And they're the balance that God is in his person and his being.

[9:15] You don't want to be under the curse of God. God's not a cartoon character. It's not a movie. This is a real thing that's real today. It's alive. When he pronounces a curse, you better be on the right side of it.

[9:27] And when God curses, I might also say that man or any being in the universe is powerless to evade it or to put a stop to it. Or to just say, well, I just don't like the sound of that and it wasn't my fault.

[9:41] No, if God curses, you're powerless to mitigate and to get away or get around it. Until there's a more powerful being than Almighty God or until he decides to rescind his curse, then the curse stays and its effects stay.

[10:01] And it operates according to his word. Now, I've often imagined, just in my lack of detailed study, I've often imagined that God just showed up and saw the corruption that Satan brought on.

[10:14] He just started cursing everything in sight. And like, it's all under a curse now from here till he fixes it. And it was until I really studied it and read it and read the words.

[10:25] Praise God for the words of God that I can read carefully the words and not another version of the words. I said, so, it's not my hobby horse, but it's true.

[10:37] I want to know what the words say so I can study them and dissect them and compare and analyze what exactly God said. And when I studied it, it's important to notice that it wasn't just everything everywhere that God cursed, but rather it was two things.

[10:54] Two specific things, two curses that came out of the mouth of God here in chapter 3. The first one's in verse 14. It was easy to find that one. It was to the serpent. The Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed.

[11:10] And there's the first one, the serpent. The second one's in verse 17. And he says, the second time he says this, because thou hast, in verse 17, unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree, which I commanded thee, saying thou shalt not eat of it.

[11:25] Here's the second curse. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. So specifically, God cursed, and intentionally I might add, God cursed two things and two things only.

[11:39] Now the man and the woman are not cursed. I've just kind of imagined they were. But they weren't. The ground was cursed.

[11:49] The serpent was cursed. The man and the woman received consequences of the curse, but not the curse itself. And it's important to notice these two curses and what they are and what they aren't.

[12:03] And why did God do that the way that we'll get to that later today, Lord willing. Now first of all, let's study the first curse. In verse 14 and 15, God cursed the serpent.

[12:16] And deservedly so. The serpent interfered with what God had just created. And I don't know the timing. Some suggest some stuff.

[12:29] And can't really verify it or back it up from the Bible. But, you know, go ahead and have an imagination. Try to understand. That's fine. We don't know.

[12:39] There's no time frame given for how long the man and his wife were in the Garden of Eden before the serpent beguiled the woman or how much interaction even took place. Remember, you're just getting little glimpses here in Genesis 1, 2, 3 of what took place in all of that time back there.

[12:55] And it's hard to tell. It's doubtful to think that it was day one. But does that make it day 10? Does it make it day year 10? What do you know? We don't know.

[13:06] We really don't know. But the servant showed up and corrupted what God had called very good. Look at chapter 1 and verse 31.

[13:21] Chapter 1, verse 31. After the Lord created the first six days of creation, the last verse of the chapter, it says, And God saw everything that he had made.

[13:34] And behold, it was very good. It was very good. The evening and the morning were the sixth day. Specifically on the sixth day, it was man and animals.

[13:45] And it was very good. God's pleased with what he did. And then the next chapter starts with the seventh day, the rest, what he did there. Now the serpent showed up and corrupted what God had made.

[13:58] He lied. He deceived. He beguiled. He deserved the curse. And God pronounced an emphatic curse upon him. Let's read it again in verses 14 and 15.

[14:09] The Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed. Notice it's a thou. It's a person. He's not talking about an animal.

[14:21] Thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

[14:32] And there's a colon. It's not a period. It's not a semicolon. It's a colon. It continues in saying, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.

[14:43] It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And there's the period. Now much of this is over my head. I have no trouble saying that.

[14:54] I could regurgitate comments others have made, but I can't verify or prove that they have any idea what they're talking about. And I don't. It's over my head.

[15:04] But from these two verses comes a lot of suggestion, a lot of speculation. And I've even made some comments in Sunday school when we came across a little of this. Overall, I find, I believe, that 14 and 15 are prophetic.

[15:18] I think. And I can even run you to a few verses and tie a few verses to it to say that it's all prophetic. But as soon as I do that, to me it just brings up more questions than I have answers.

[15:30] And so I leave it alone. I just say what I think and leave it alone. A lot of people will say, well, verse 14 is the animal, and verse 15 is the devil.

[15:41] And that seems kind of obvious, but it really doesn't explain what's happening and why God would curse an animal, something that he created for his glory.

[15:52] And it just, it doesn't add up. I think 14 and 15 together are the devil and a future thing that's kind of unrevealed to me or just something I don't fully understand.

[16:04] I might have a little bit of it, but not all of it, so I have to back off. I can't comment confidently on the details or the implications of what this curse is on the serpent.

[16:18] I do know who the serpent is, though. I absolutely know that. Now, furthermore, and this is just food for thought, I'm not convinced that the serpent, that is the devil, Satan, is even present in this moment in the Garden of Eden in this conversation.

[16:35] You may think, what are you talking about? It's right there. It's in the Bible. He said, well, yeah, I'm not trying to get all theological and like this, you know, super thinking mind here, but you need to understand the author's Moses under inspiration of God by the Holy Spirit is writing, and I'm telling you, he's just giving you little snapshot glimpses of ping, ping, ping, and setting up for the human race and for eternity the truth that took place, but he's not giving a diary, a daily diary of Adam and Eve.

[17:10] He's just giving these certain truths that happen that you need to know, that you can build on, and that had effect, real effect, to understanding our world and much of what comes up through the Scripture.

[17:21] Kind of a, there's a thread, and it goes all the way back to Genesis. Now, I'm not convinced that he was present. I don't think that they were hiding amongst the trees, and God says, where art thou?

[17:33] And Satan's like, come on, guys, we've got to go out and talk to him. I don't think he was there. You always see the image of the tree, like God is confronting them beside the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the serpent's wrapped around it, and they're both holding, you know, fig leaves on them or something.

[17:48] You always see that somebody, you try to illustrate it in a graphic, and I've never seen it. I don't think anybody's gotten it. I don't believe the devil, I don't believe the serpent is in the picture at the moment.

[18:02] I think Moses is just putting that piece of the puzzle in the right context as he's giving the narrative. I'll give you an example if this doesn't make sense to you.

[18:14] If I told you, yeah, yesterday I went fishing, and I had to walk two miles to get down to the water, and I busted my knee, and I scraped up my leg, and I slipped and got my feet soaking wet, and I didn't catch any fish.

[18:29] It was a horrible day. And you say, I come home, I tell my wife that, and she's like, well, honey, that's terrible. How'd you hurt your knee?

[18:39] Well, when I was walking around the back of the truck, I banged it on the hitch when we were leaving. And you might think, well, you said, the first thing you said was you walked two miles and you busted your knee and then you slipped in the water.

[18:53] And the truth is, in that kind of story I'm giving, I'm just giving you the snapshots of all the terrible things that happened to me that day. I'm not explaining.

[19:04] Some people have this curse. Curse. This is a curse. My dad has this curse. That when they tell a story, they can't tell the, just give you the snapshots so you get it.

[19:15] No. Well, wait a minute. Let me backtrack. And they go back and go around us and that, well, wait a minute. No, I forgot this. I met this guy before that. And they just take so long to tell the story. Come on.

[19:26] Just give me what I need to know. Moses just gives us what we need to know. And that's what I see here is that God shows up and he pronounces judgment on the man and the woman. And in the context of that, it's the right place to put it.

[19:40] He puts the conversation that he has with the serpent in the context with his role in the situation right after Eve says the serpent. And he says, well, God said to the serpent this because you did it this.

[19:52] And unto the woman he said this. And that's just my take on it. If that helps you, maybe, maybe not. But that's my take on this scene. So nevertheless, God curses the serpent.

[20:02] He's cursed of God and he cannot undo it. He cannot override it. Already we know from Matthew 25 that hell is prepared for the devil and his angels.

[20:15] His destiny is determined. As a matter of fact, the lake of fire is his eternal destiny and that's determined in the word of God. This is established stuff.

[20:26] But for Satan to go and do what he did, interfering with God's will and what God was doing with these others, the Lord cursed him now and said, for the rest of the days of your life, you're going to be cursed.

[20:42] It was something that he brought on himself. He could have just left it go, but no, he tried to meddle with what God was doing and now he brought on something worse than what was already going to be his fate.

[20:54] And he did it because he was trying to corrupt man and get in the way of what God was trying to do. It causes me to consider that, that very thought and to exhort all of us.

[21:08] Don't interfere with what God is doing. Don't get in the way when the hand of God is on someone or something, whether it's good or evil, if it's of the Lord, let him have his way, stay out of the way.

[21:25] Some parents have a problem with this when it's their child and they run astray and they just want to fix it, they want to get him back, they want to do everything they can instead of just let God do his work and turn him over to the Lord.

[21:40] And if you just get your hands off him and quit trying to fix it and quit trying to pay for this and quit trying to mend up with the messes they make, you might find that God can deal with them and instead you might be bringing on more problems and pushing them further away, allowing them, enabling them.

[21:57] Some preachers do this with members in their congregation when they see the Lord has his hand on them, they get intimidated by it and they think, oh no brother, oh no you shouldn't go to Bible school, oh no you shouldn't go, you just stay here and study a little more.

[22:14] I've been doing this 30 years, you've only been doing it 25, you should just stay a little longer. But no, if God's doing something, don't get in the way. Let God do what he wants to do.

[22:28] Sometimes men get intimidated by other men and their pride gets in the way, they never admit it but they interfere. Rather than encourage, they give bad and selfish counsel and advice.

[22:44] Carnal Christians will do this, carnal Christians will get in the way of God trying to grow another Christian and trying to speak to their heart and instead of allowing God to work on them, they don't want them to get more spiritual than they are so they put a wet blanket on what the Holy Spirit would be trying to do in their heart.

[23:04] This is what the devil does. He interferes with the will and the work of God. Don't interfere with what God's doing. Don't force God to punish you to take you out of the picture so that he can get his will accomplished in someone else's life.

[23:23] Be on God's side. Don't get in the way. And as I say that, don't presume that God puts you in their life to be the Holy Spirit because he didn't.

[23:36] He is the Holy Spirit. He doesn't need you to tell them how they need to dress and how they need to act and when they need to show up and you let God do the work in their heart.

[23:47] You want to do something? Pray. Get on your face and pray and say, God, please do the work and he can do it. When you interfere, you might be being used of Satan when you think you're being used of God.

[24:02] So God curses the serpent for corrupting, for getting in the way, for messing with something that he had going that he said was very good and Satan got in the way.

[24:17] Don't get in the way. Secondly, we see that God curses the ground. In verse 17, come to that middle part in the verse where you see, he says, you ate of what I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it.

[24:29] cursed is the ground. Notice these next three words. For thy sake. It's your fault, Adam, but the ground, the innocent ground, is going to bear the curse.

[24:49] This is why this is a contrasting curses because one of the curses, the ones receiving something they deserved, the other one, is receiving what another deserves.

[25:03] There's something different about these curses. Look back at chapter 1. I want to point out the third day of creation. And on the third day, which by the way, was good.

[25:21] Verse number 9, and God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so.

[25:32] Why? Because God said so. So it was so. Everything obeys. And God called the dry land earth. And the gathering together of the waters called he sees and God saw that it was good.

[25:46] So verse 9, it was so because he said it and it was good because what he said was so. It was good. Nothing interfered. Nothing corrupted it. It was good.

[25:56] Verse 11, and God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so.

[26:08] And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself after his kind and God saw that it was good. Dry land, so much better than water.

[26:24] So much better than being on water. Can you imagine if God made water and we had to live on water and floating on water and getting seasick and puking every day?

[26:34] Can you imagine that? Dry land, stable, secure. If you're on the water and the storm comes, you want to get the land as soon as possible. It's your haven.

[26:45] It's your safety. It's a blessing. It's something we need. And God made dry land. He made the earth. He called it earth and he said it's good. The earth did nothing wrong. Actually, what God told the earth to do, it was doing and it was so exactly what God had told it to do.

[27:03] And now, coming into Genesis chapter 3, and now, because of the man and because of his wife and because of the serpent, now the earth is bearing a curse for the man.

[27:18] Now the man will receive the consequences of the curse and that's listed and we'll try to get into that next week, Lord willing. But the man's not actually cursed. It affects him indirectly, but he's not bearing the curse.

[27:31] The ground is bearing the curse that the man brought on and that the man deserves. And Paul says in Romans 8, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

[27:45] And this won't be the only time that something or that someone bears the curse that another deserves. Now you say, why didn't God curse the man?

[27:58] They sinned. They disobeyed. They tried to conceal and hide and cover. Why didn't you curse the man and his wife that did the actual deed? I believe the answer is because God had already done something.

[28:12] Look back at chapter 1. God had already said something to them and remember the opposite side of the curse? It's the blessing. God had already blessed.

[28:24] Look at chapter 1 in verse number 27. So God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them and God blessed them.

[28:40] God put a blessing on the man and his wife. Now look earlier in the chapter. You see God blesses something before this day. On the fifth day, look at verse 20.

[28:52] And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after his kind and God saw that it was good and God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth.

[29:19] Now that's the first one. The first blessing upon what's in the air and what's in the seas. Notice it's not on the dry land specifically. And then he blesses the man and the woman.

[29:33] And so in chapter 3 comes the curse on the serpent but on the dry land because God had already blessed some other things.

[29:46] He's not going to put the curse on it. And so the curse bears the desert of the man and his wife. You remember in Numbers, the book of Numbers where God's bringing his children of Israel toward their land and they're moving like a mighty army from place to place and there's a specific king named Balak and he sees them coming and he realizes I've got to do something and I've got to I've got to act fast or I'm going to be wiped out.

[30:16] And so he finds a man named Balaam and he knows that whoever Balaam blesses is blessed and whoever he curses is cursed. He has power with God Almighty. And so he goes to Balaam and he says I need you to come out here and curse this people so that I can go out against them and prevail against them and just get rid of them.

[30:35] I can send them back the way they came. And so Balaam goes before the Lord and God speaks to Balaam and he says to him this he says Thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed.

[30:48] You're not going to be able to do that. You can't it's not going to work. I can't curse them because I've already blessed them. We say this a lot we say oh God bless you. I'm blessed.

[31:00] God bless America. Bless this bless that and bless your heart. We use that word in such a broad and insignificant way kind of it's common speech.

[31:13] But oh to have God bless you what he's talking what the Bible's talking about what he's talking about when he says he blessed them.

[31:26] to have God bless you not curse but to have the almighty creator put a true and evident blessing on you one that will not go away one that a curse can't touch their polar opposites it can't come near it because it's blessed.

[31:48] Oh that God would bless you that God would look on you and bless you. let me ask you a question this morning I know it's going to sound generic are you saved?

[32:00] Are you right now are you saved? Nobody in the room just you and you in front of the throne of God and his holiness are you okay? are you going to get by the judgment?

[32:12] Do you have Jesus Christ? That's a question it's not generic for me I'm not asking that in a random way I'm not thinking about are you blessed with clothes or with freedom or with a good family or I'm blessed with having my bills paid and food in my belly I'm not talking about that stuff at all I'm talking about what God's talking about here turn to Romans chapter 8 talking about being under a blessing you could lose all of the things you call blessings and still have this one Romans chapter 4 you could lose your home you could lose your family you could lose your health you could lose your freedom you could lose your shoes you could lose your cell phone and you can still be blessed in this light that we're going to cover here because studying this curse that God placed on the ground he wouldn't curse the man and his wife because they're blessed so he transferred it to the ground which was innocent and good and he cursed it and a wonderful truth emerges when we come to the New Testament look at Romans 4 let's begin at verse number 1 and I want you to see in this a blessing that's not simple like shoes and clothes and a stable job not those little things in life that just come and go

[33:54] I'm talking about a position a state to be blessed of God look at verse 1 what shall we say then that Abraham our father as pertaineth to the flesh hath found for if Abraham were justified by works he hath were of the glory but not before God for what sayeth the scripture that's a great question what sayeth the scripture you want to figure something out what's the Bible say Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt in plainer words if you could work your way to heaven or work your way to being righteous before God then he would owe it to you because you've earned it if that were true but verse 5 says but to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness notice he justifieth the ungodly those are sinners they are not righteous but what God justifies he's like a judge declaring you're innocent now that's just not right that's just not right a guilty person innocent it's not right the guilty person is guilty and deserves to pay for their guilt and their sin but if he'll believe on him that justifieth the ungodly somebody likes to justify ungodly people his faith the man's faith is counted for righteousness now verse 6 says even as David also describeth the blessedness the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without work saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin whose sin his sin and the Lord won't impute your guilt to you because he's imputed it to his own son and we believe on him the Lord Jesus

[36:10] Christ and we get righteousness imputed to our account our filthy ungodly worthless account we get the righteousness of Christ declared on us and he calls it David describes the blessedness of that man the man whose sins are forgiven the man whose sins are covered the man who the Lord will not impute sin because of Christ because he's my savior God looks at me and says I will not impute his sin unto him I'm not going to do it because he's blessed he's blessed he won't get the curse he'll never get the curse because of Jesus Christ and because of salvation the Bible says in Galatians 3 so then they which are of faith are blessed the Bible says in Ephesians 1 he hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ

[37:12] Jesus it will never be said to the man that has this blessedness that has this imputation of righteousness it will never be said to him depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire no why because I've got the blessing I've been blessed I hope you hear what I'm saying it feels so generic because it's so abused I'm not talking about the little stuff I'm talking about this this state of being righteous it's called the blessedness of the man described that has righteousness without works God is not going to revoke that blessing look over at Galatians 3 Galatians chapter 3 couple books to your right God will not revoke that blessing that gift of eternal life we possess eternal life in the Lord

[38:24] Jesus Christ who is blessed forevermore and in Christ that's me I'm not holy but I'm blessed forevermore in him and I won't ever taste the curse but if somebody insists that no I don't need Christ I'm doing a pretty good job I've done a pretty good job this far I've never done X Y and Z then look at verse number number 10 Galatians 3 verse 10 for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse now this is a different curse there's more than one curse in the Bible as a matter of fact in Genesis 3 if you turn to chapter 4 you see another curse being pronounced on Cain after he murders his brother and God curses him and then later on he institutes the law of Moses and tells his people you got to keep all the commands of this law and if you do it'll be your righteousness and name one person that did

[39:30] Jesus Christ name another none and verse 10 says many are of the works of the law are under the curse for it is written cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them but that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it's evident for the just shall live by faith now if you want to ignore Jesus Christ and you want to continue insist on working and showing God how good you are and see if you can earn that reward of debt that God will owe you you'll just continue under the curse and you'll never get out from under the curse because you can't obtain righteousness without Jesus Christ you can't wash away your sins without the blood of Jesus Christ you'll never be justified in Genesis chapter 4 Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord and Cain was a tiller of the ground the ground cursed and he was a tiller of the ground and he brought this offering unto the

[40:36] Lord of the ground the first truth the best I'm sure it was immaculate I wonder if it would have covered a table he's offering it to the Lord surely it wasn't just a little basket I don't know but he's bringing the best display of all the work of his hands the work of his hands but it's coming from the dirt and he doesn't understand Cain what am I going to do with this I can't bless this I can't accept you this is cursed it's coming from the dirt I cursed it it's unacceptable Cain sin lieth at the door and Cain got in a rage and went and slew his brother who was righteous and now he's cursed and it gets far worse it's not possible for God to accept something that's cursed there's two curses this morning in Genesis 3 there's the serpent and the ground the one brought it on himself and the other bore it for others look at

[41:50] Galatians 3 again and look at verse number 13 the Bible says Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law look at it being made a curse for us for it's written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree so Jesus Christ not the only one that was crucified but Jesus Christ bore the sin that was somebody else's those thieves those male factors on his side his right and his left they the one said we indeed justly we're receiving a just reward for our sin but this man hath done nothing amiss and there at that scene on Calvary with the sinners being crucified for their sins and guilt they brought it on themselves but the one that we know in the middle was bearing it for others the bible says that he bore for the sins of the whole world and he's the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world and so

[43:06] Jesus Christ there receives that curse became a curse being made a curse for us you and I came into this world the offspring of Adam and Eve we entered into a fallen a distorted perverted corrupt sinful environment we came into we're immersed in a curse and the Lord Jesus Christ took our sins and now we have a choice we have a choice to die in sin under a curse to be damned to hell with the cursed and with the devil and his angels and with all cursed mankind that never knew him or to receive the blessing through Jesus Christ who paid the punishment for our sin who became a curse for you your choice is who do I want to follow which example do I want to be part of do I want to be with the curse that brought it on themselves or do I want to be where the one bore the curse for me and receive righteousness let's bow our heads this morning

[44:22] I want to ask the question a sobering thought to everybody here I asked it earlier I'll ask it again are you saved are you saved are you blessed with eternal life with salvation from your sins or are you still under the curse you can be made free from that curse you can believe on Jesus Christ and receive the blessedness where God will say I will not impute your sin to you because my son has paid for it I wonder this morning is there anyone here is there anyone that's considering this that is say I don't know I'm not sure if I have received the blessedness of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through Jesus

[45:22] Christ I'm not sure I know you're a sinner we're all sinners don't let your sin distort your mind in thinking that if you sin since you asked Christ to save you that you're no longer saved and you need to do it again you don't you've sinned but God won't impute that sin to you if you've received Christ God God's imputed that sin already to his own son and he bore it for you he was wounded for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities and if the Lord Jesus Christ is not accepted of God nothing you do is gonna be and so we place our faith in him believing that he satisfied the wrath of God against our sins have you received the gift of eternal life are you saved if you're not saved I want to ask you to do not leave this church this morning

[46:24] I want to talk to you I want to sit down with the word of God and just open it and turn you through the pages of the book and show you how you can receive eternal life but it's gonna be up to you to seek me out to sit down and to talk it over it's your soul it's eternity it's heaven and hell and I'm not gonna beg you to come up here and I'm not gonna put you on a spot I'm just gonna ask you you wanna get it straight out you wanna talk about it then see me after the service let's talk about it we can get it settled but then Christian this morning there's that other curse there's that that that slithering deceptive serpent and he brought on something on himself he never should have he interfered with what God was doing I wonder as we were covering that material did the Lord speak to your heart did he illuminate you to something you've been doing or did you just think of somebody else if the

[47:29] Lord's showing you that you as a parent or as a person a man or woman in this life getting in the way of something God's trying to do if he's showing that to you then surrender it to him and confess it to him get it right with him and tell him you'll back off learn how to pray turn it over to him and by the grace of God let him do what he needs to do our father we are content to have studied these passages and considered these two curses and understand and see even some application and how we can be on one side or the other this morning lord I pray specifically for any particular individual that's not sure of salvation pray that you'll give them conviction and courage that today could be the day of salvation that they could come to Christ and lay their burden down and pick up eternal life that wonderful free gift and leave here in that liberty lord for the rest of us that are born again give us a burden for those that are lost in our family and those around us help us to do our part in letting them know that

[48:51] Christ hath redeemed us and lord help us not to be guilty of the work of our adversary the devil I pray that Jesus Christ would be glorified for the work that he has done in our hearts and lives please continue to grow us and mold us and fix us we pray this in Jesus name amen amen um john do you know that nor silver nor gold song no uh you can do that linda wants to sing it what number is it all right let's stand together and we're gonna we're gonna sing just a little bit of this one song 215 and john play with you if you can catch anything you can catch along the way oh five flats is that tough that's all right we'll uh we're gonna sing just the first verse no I want to sing the last verse

[49:58] I want to sing the last verse and that's gonna dismiss us it's verse number four nor silver nor gold hath obtained my redemption the way into heaven could not thus be bought all right verse four can you give us