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                                                        The Curse (February 21, 2023)

“Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:17)

We live in a perilous world torn by sorrow, suffering, and strife and locked in the grips of a deadly curse resulting from the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. When the first man Adam accepted his wife Eve’s invitation and ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin orchestrated by the serpent corrupted a once perfect paradise over which God had given his human creations dominion. Using deceit to introduce doubt into Eve’s mind, the devil cunningly seized from Adam the title deed to the earth and Satan and the ground were cursed. The father of lies, the devil deceptively usurped man’s domination over the earth and became what the Apostle Paul called “the god of this world.”  (2 Corinthians 4:4) However, that is an ominous title that Satan will ultimately have to relinquish.

“Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:18-19)

The curse that consumed the earth because of humanity’s rebelliousness is symbolized by the “thorns” that transformed God’s paradise into an evil wilderness. But no sooner than sin and death had entered the world, God promised the only cure for this curse -- the redemption of mankind through the “Seed” of the woman, a Savior who would enter His creation as God incarnate, die sacrificially, and rise again to life in victory over Satan so that everyone could have the opportunity for eternal life in the paradise of heaven. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Bible’s first Messianic prophesy (Genesis 3:15) when He bore a crown of thorns and suffered an agonizing death on another tree crafted into a cross. When Christ returns to reclaim the title deed and to reign on earth for a thousand years, life will again be as it was before this woeful curse.

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)



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