Latest / Reformed Thinking / Christ the Conqueror of Satan (Genesis 3:15) | Charles Spurgeon

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Christ the Conqueror of Satan (Genesis 3:15) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine for a second the absolute most devastating
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catastrophe in human history. Like the specific moment
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humanity just lost Paradise, right?
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You would expect the Creator's very first response to be, well,
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a sentence of doom, like a swift gavel striking a desk to condemn
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the guilty party. Oh for sure, you'd expect
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immediate wrath. Yeah, but the first sermon ever
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preached wasn't a punishment directed at humans, It was
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actually a declaration of war against the devil.
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Which is just wild to think about.
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It really is welcome to Reformed thinking.
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Today we are taking a deep dive into a diagnostic landscape of
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spiritual trauma. We are looking at Charles
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Spurgeon's sermon Christ the Conqueror of Satan based on
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Genesis chapter 3, verse 15 A. Massively significant text.
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Spot on. Our mission today is to figure
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out how a single sentence spoken right there in the Garden of
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Eden contains the entire blueprint of Christian theology.
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And you know how it maps onto your daily spiritual life?
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Yeah, to set the baseline context here, we have to
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recognize the sheer weight of this moment.
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I mean, Genesis 3, verse 15, it wasn't spoken by some prophet.
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It wasn't written in an epistle by an apostle decades after the
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fact. The preacher here was Jehovah
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himself. Wow, yeah, that changes the
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tone. It does.
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And consider the audience standing that garden.
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The audience was the entire human race, represented in that
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moment by Adam and Eve, right alongside the Prince of
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Darkness. So everyone who mattered was
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there. Yeah, you have the creator of
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the universe delivering a message to all of humanity and
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the instigator of their ruin all in one breath.
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OK, let's unpack this because look at the timeline.
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Before we even get to what God said, we have to look at when He
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said it. The context shifts our entire
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understanding of divine grace. It really does.
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I mean, Adam and Eve have just eaten the fruit they are hiding,
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they are terrified and God steps into the garden.
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The timing is so striking, Spurgeon points out, that this
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promise was delivered immediately after the
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transgression, Like right away. Before any curses were handed.
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Out. Yeah, It happened before God
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pronounced any sentences of painful travail on the woman.
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It happened before the exhausting labor was assigned to
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the man. Right before the ground was
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cursed. Yes, before the soil was cursed
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with thorns and thistles. There is this theological
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concept that mercy rejoices against judgment.
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God didn't wait until the punishments were handed down to
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offer a glimmer of hope. He led with mercy.
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He really did before. He said dust you are, and to
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dust you shall return. He gave a promise of
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deliverance. Wait, so you were saying that by
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speaking to the snake first, God bypassed Adam and Eve completely
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in that initial moment of grace? That is the beautiful reality.
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Of it that effectively takes the burden of fixing the world out
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of human hands. But I do have a logistical
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question about the target of that message.
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Sure. What is it?
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Why did God speak this comforting promise directly to
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the serpent? I mean, you have Adam and Eve
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standing right there, terrified, knowing they have ruined
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everything. Why wouldn't God look directly
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at them to offer this comfort? Well, the analysis of that
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choice reveals the real mechanism of grace.
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By speaking obliquely to the serpent as a punishment, God
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made this a personal dispute between himself and Satan.
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I see. It was not about human merit at
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all. God stepped in to protect his
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own name and his own honor from being blasphemed by fallen
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spirits. Because Satan thought he had.
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Won. Yeah.
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Satan thought he had secured A decisive victory.
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He thought he had destroyed God's handiwork and recruited
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humanity into his rebellion. So by addressing Satan directly,
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God was essentially saying I am taking over this quarrel.
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You aren't fighting them anymore, you're fighting me.
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That is incredible. And for you listening right now,
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there is a massive take away here.
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Mercy given for God's sake to vindicate his own honor is a far
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more secure anchor than mercy relying on any supposed human
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merit. Because if it relied on human
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merit, well, Adam and Eve had literally just proven they had
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none. Yeah, none at all.
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They had just failed the easiest test imaginable.
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They had one rule and they broke it.
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If God had looked at them and said I will save you because you
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are apparently good, it would have been a lie.
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That is it. The divine sovereignty and glory
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afford a much stronger foundation of hope.
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God was undertaking the repair of the mischief so that His name
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wouldn't be diminished among the immortal spirits looking down on
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the scene. It humbles humanity for sure.
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It does, but it also provides an unshakable consolation.
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Your rescue doesn't depend on your performance, it depends on
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God defending His own glory. Which is so freeing, you know?
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Spurgeon describes this single verse as a Lone Star in the sky
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for early believers. We look back now with the entire
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Bible, thousands of years of history, countless sermons.
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But for those early generations, this one sentence was literally
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all they had. Just try to imagine the
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theological landscape of that era.
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Picture a pitch black night sky with only one single star
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shining. Just Genesis 315.
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Yeah, that was the reality for Abel.
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He looked up at that one promise, the promise that the
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seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head.
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And he believed. By the light of that single
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star, Abel somehow spelled out the concept of sacrifice.
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He brought the first slings of his flock, laid them on the
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altar, and ended up dying for that testimony.
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Proving the reality of the friction between the two seeds
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right off the bat. Yeah, right away.
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And it wasn't just Abel. You have Enoch, the 7th from
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Adam and Noah. They relied completely on the
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single torch of revelation it had to sustain believers for
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generations. It really makes you realize how
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densely packed this one sentence is.
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Definitely. Spurgeon uses an analogy here,
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saying Genesis 3 verse 15 contains all the great truths of
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the gospel, just as an oak lies hidden within an acorn.
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Think about it. You hold an acorn in your hand
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and it looks small. Simple, self-contained, right?
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But inside that tiny shell is the genetic blueprint for a
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massive, sprawling oak tree with deep roots and heavy branches.
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It has everything it needs. Yeah, in the same way this one
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sentence holds the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the suffering
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of Christ, the defeat of Satan, and the final victory of the
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Church. Well, let's look at the
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mechanics of that incarnation aspect.
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The specific phrase God uses is seed of the woman.
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It is a very strange choice of words for an ancient patriarchal
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society. It is a total biological
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anomaly. Under normal genealogical terms
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of that era, lineage was traced exclusively through the man.
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Right, the begats. Yeah, you see this all
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throughout ancient records. So and so begat so and so.
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Always tracing the paternal line to say see to the woman disrupts
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that entirely. It stands out like a sore thumb.
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It really does. It hints clearly at the virgin
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birth. Jesus wasn't born after the
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ordinary manner of men. Mary was overshadowed by the
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Holy Ghost, making Christ specifically and uniquely the
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seed of the woman. Setting up the divine method of
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the Redeemer's conception long before the prophet Isaiah ever
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spoke about a virgin conceiving. Yeah, the blueprint was there
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from day one. Then you have the phrase between
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thy seed and her seed. This introduces A cosmic
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conflict. It isn't just about 1 singular
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champion fighting a snake, it is about two distinct lineages
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warring throughout history. It's the historical reality of
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the church versus the synagogue of Satan.
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It establishes A perpetual conflict between those born of
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the flesh and those born of the Spirit.
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A constant battle. Yes.
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Spurgeon traces this through scriptural pairings.
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You have Abel and Cain, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau.
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It is a continuous line of friction.
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Two parallel lines of humanity. Exactly.
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There is a seed of the woman on God's side, and a seed of the
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serpent constantly opposing them.
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So what does this all mean? Like for the listener tuning in
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right? Well.
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It means you are situated squarely within this ongoing
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friction. If you belong to Christ, you are
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part of that seed and you are in the middle of this historical
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war. Which brings us to the first
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historical facts Spurgeon outlines.
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Enmity. Excited to appreciate this, you
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really have to grasp the tragic irony of the garden scene.
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Oh, the irony is thick. Before God spoke, Eve and the
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serpent were actually quite friendly.
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They had commerced. She thought he was giving her
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helpful advice to the point where she took His word over the
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Creator's command. They had formed a sort of
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alliance. A covenant with hell,
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essentially. But the moment God stepped in,
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He actively broke up that friendship.
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Well, the friendship of sinners doesn't last long anyway.
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Eve was already blaming the serpent, saying the serpent
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beguiled me. True, true.
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But God took that initial disagreement and formalized it
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into a permanent war. He said I will put enmity
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between thee and the woman. The very first act of grace was
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God causing the woman and her spiritual seed to hate the evil
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1 and his devices. You know, I am struggling to
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understand how God placing hatred, this enmity in our
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hearts is considered an act of grace.
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Usually we think of grace as bringing peace.
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It sounds contradictory at first, yeah.
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It feels like discovering you have been living with a
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parasite. The cure isn't learning to live
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in harmony with the parasite. The cure is your body developing
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a violent immune response to kill it.
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Is that what Spurgeon means by the grace of enmity?
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That analogy captures the mechanism perfectly.
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I mean, if you are comfortable with the entity trying to
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destroy you, you are doomed. You'll just let it kill you.
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Yeah, God gave humanity the gift of hating their destroyer.
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He set up a rival Kingdom to oppose the tyranny of sin and
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Satan. The Holy Spirit acts as that
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spiritual immune response, causing you to reject the
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pathogen of sin. And we see that immune response
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play out in the listener's internal life today.
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Spurgeon uses a highly relatable metaphor here.
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He talks about the moment the juice is taken out of the apple
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of sin. It is a psychological shift that
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many listeners will definitely recognize.
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I know I do, right? You might recall a time when you
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enjoyed worldly pleasures without a second thought, but
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then suddenly you began to feel uneasy to satisfy.
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Like it just lost its appeal. Yeah, the things that used to
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bring you joy felt hollow. Spurgeon describes it as
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realizing the juice has been sucked out of the apple and you
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are just left chewing on the hardcore, which you can't feed
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on at all. You feel miserable and trapped
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in the habit. You can't seem to get rid of it,
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but suddenly you find yourself despising it.
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That hatred, that groaning under a galling yoke, is the exact
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manifestation of God putting enmity between you and the
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serpent. It is the decree of God making
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itself known in your life. It's an act of intervention.
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Yeah, the divine life is dropped into your soul like a spark of
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celestial fire. You might not have understood
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all the complex theology at the time, but you knew you hated the
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darkness that was holding you. Once that enmity is established,
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the war begins, and that leads to the second historic fact, the
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coming of the champion. God promised a specific seed who
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would champion the cause against the serpent.
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And we trace the fulfillment of that seed directly to Jesus
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Christ. Consider the narrative
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progression here. The seed is born in Bethlehem,
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and immediately the dragon tries to devour the child.
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Right away, Satan enters the heart of Herod to slaughter the
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infants, trying to eliminate the champion before the battle even
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begins. But the child is preserved, and
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then we jump forward 30 years to the wilderness, which is where
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the champion meets the adversary, foot to foot.
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For 40 days Jesus is assailed with all the Hillary Satan has
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flattery, malice, craft, falsehood.
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Just a barrage. But the champion stands
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unwounded. He chases his foemen from the
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field, using the word of God as his weapon.
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He refuses to bow, refuses to test God, refuses to turn stones
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to bread. And Jesus didn't just play
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defense in the wilderness. He pushed the offensive.
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He carried the war straight into the enemy's territory.
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He really did. He went around casting out
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devils. He would speak to an unclean
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spirit commanded to come out, and the demon had a flea.
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They had no choice. Legions of devils sought to hide
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in swine just to escape the terror of his presence.
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They cried out, asking if he had come to torment them before
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their time. He terrified them.
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Yeah, and Jesus gave his disciples the ability to cast
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out demons as well, effectively shaking the gates of hell.
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He said he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
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OK, so how does that historical champion relate to the internal
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experience of the listener? We know Jesus marched through
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Judea casting out demons, but how does that translate to
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someone sitting in traffic listening to this right now?
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It translates when Christ is formed within you.
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It is the moment when you finally understand the legal
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mechanism of substitution. The legal mechanism.
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Yeah, you realize that Christ stood in your place.
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He bore your curse. In your punishment, He gave his
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righteousness to you. When your heart grasps that the
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legal dominion of the enemy over you is completely broken, you
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see that what the law couldn't do, the champion accomplished on
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your behalf. But this fight isn't without
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casualties, and that brings us to the most paradoxical part of
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the prophecy. Genesis 3, verse 15 presents a
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dual prophecy of simultaneous injury, a bruised heel and a
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crushed head. Right.
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This is the third fact, the bruised heel.
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Why a heel? Why that specific part of the
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anatomy? Well, the heel represents
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Christ's lower part, His human nature as a divine being.
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He couldn't be harmed by Satan. Right, God can't be injured.
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Exactly. But by taking on human flesh, he
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exposed a heel, so to speak, that could be bruised.
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It signifies his entire life of sicknesses, sorrows, and
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rejection. It culminated in the physical
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and mental agony of Gethsemane in the Cross.
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Gethsemane was a severe, bruising Jesus sweat, drops of
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blood and agony. It was a personal assault by
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Satan, an attempt to stop him from completing the sacrifice.
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A total assault on his mind and body.
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Yeah, Jesus himself called it the hour of darkness.
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And then on the cross, the heel was bruised most cruelly.
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His hands and feet were pierced. He endured the shame and pain of
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crucifixion. Satan let loose Herod Pilot,
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Caiaphas, the Romans, all his tools upon the Christ.
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If the listener is truly part of the woman's seed, they have to
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expect to experience that bruised heel in their own lives
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as well. What does a bruised heel look
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like in a modern context? Satan still nibbles at the heel
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of believers. Since he can't destroy your
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soul, he aims to torment your mind.
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Just to cause pain, yeah. Spurgeon gives concrete
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examples. Satan injects blasphemous
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thoughts, urges you to take desperate measures, or teaches
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you to doubt the existence of God and the reality of his
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mercy. He.
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Plays on our anxieties. He tries to convince you that
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your salvation is impossible. That is the old serpent biting
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at your heel, trying to cause you as much mental agony as
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possible. And there's a social aspect to
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this push back to. It isn't all just internal
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mental battles. Oh, absolutely.
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Worldly friends might start giving you the cold shoulder.
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They see something about you that is foreign to their tastes.
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Like you don't fit it anymore. Right.
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They might attribute your conduct to fanaticism, pride,
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obstinacy, or bigotry. This is the seed of the serpent,
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discovering the seed of the woman, and carrying on the old
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war. Just like it started in Genesis.
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As the Apostle Paul noted, he that is born after the flesh
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persecutes him that is born after the Spirit.
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The mockery and alienation you face are your heel being bruised
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in sympathy with the bruising of the glorious champion.
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But there's a crucial limitation to this injury.
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It was only his heel. It wasn't his head.
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It wasn't a mortal continual. Wound.
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That is the scar of glory. Jesus died, yes, but the
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interval in the tomb was brief. His holy body didn't see
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corruption. He conquered it.
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He came forth perfect in his manhood.
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He retained the scars, the bruise on the heel, but he bears
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them to the skies as his glory and beauty.
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Like a badge of honor. It is very much like the story
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of Jacob. Jacob wrestled the Angel and
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walked away with a limp, halting on his thigh.
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The injury was a marker of his triumph.
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Christ's bruised heel is the eternal proof of his victory.
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Which leads to the 4th historic fact, the bruising of the
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serpent's head. I really want to spend some time
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here because the mechanism of this victory is so
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counterintuitive. It really is.
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How does dying on a Roman cross crush a spiritual entity that
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feels like a category? Error 1 is a physical execution,
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the other is a spiritual defeat. What's fascinating here is to
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understand the mechanism, we have to look at the legal
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framework of Satan's authority. OK, the legal side.
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Satan's primary weapon is accusation.
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He acts as a prosecuting attorney.
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He uses the broken law of God to demand the death penalty for
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humanity. He.
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Points out our guilt. Right.
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As long as humans have unpardoned sin, Satan has legal
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ammunition to hold them hostage. He thought that by bringing
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death of the Son of God, he was securing his ultimate victory.
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He thought he had the ultimate leverage.
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He thought he was proving that even the purest human could be
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subjected to the curse of death. But the very act that Satan
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orchestrated to destroy Jesus was the exact mechanism God used
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to disarm Satan completely. Precisely when Christ died on
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the cross, he absorbed the penalty of that sin.
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He paid the legal debt in full. Wiped the slate clean.
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By taking away the sin, he took away the prosecuting attorney's
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evidence. The court case is dismissed.
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Satan has no more legal standing to accuse the believer.
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So by dying, Jesus legally disarmed the devil.
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He spoiled principalities and authorities, making a show of
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them openly. The suffering of the heel was
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the crushing weight that caved in the legal authority of the
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serpent. The ultimate foil is the
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resurrection. Satan's plan backfired
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completely. Death couldn't retain a single
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bone of the woman's seed. The resurrection proves that the
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serpent's head is broken. Christ rises, giving a pledge
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that all his followers will rise as well.
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The guarantee of our future. Yeah, the cold seal of Dist is
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broken. Satan knows that at the trump of
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the Archangel the dead will rise from the earth and the sea,
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shouting, O death, where is thy sting?
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O grave, where is thy victory? The resurrection is the
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undeniable proof that Satan missed his mark entirely and
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secured his own doom. We see tangible proof of that
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broken head in the lives of listeners today.
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The reigning slavery to sin is shattered.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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Spurgeon points to sudden cures from profound vices.
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Like overnight changes. Yeah, he mentions men guilty of
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profane swearing or drunkenness. Who from the moment of
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conversion, find the chains broken.
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They become chaste and pure. Christ smites the old dragon
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such blows that Satan loses his dictatorial grip over them.
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To be clear, though believers still struggle, we still sigh
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and cry over sin. The presence of sin is still a
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grief. Oh yes, the presence remains,
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but the dominion is gone. The believers heart no longer
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chases the darkness. They consent to God's law.
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They actually want to obey. It the desire changes.
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And the guilt is removed. Satan tries to say, I brought
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you under the curse, But the believer can reply, no, I am
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delivered. My transgression is forgiven.
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That realization is a massive blow to the Dragon's head.
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I want to point out the example Spurgeon uses regarding the
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biblical figure of Job. It is a striking picture of how
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a feeble human being can participate in vanquishing the
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devil. Satan must have felt incredibly
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small that day. I mean, he dragged Job down to a
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dunghill, robbed him of his 12th, covered him with painful
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sores. Took away his family.
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He even used the weather blowing down a house to kill Job's
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children. Satan threw every physical and
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emotional weapon at him, yet he couldn't make Job curse God.
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Job held firm. A feeble, bereaved man sitting
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on a pile of ash won the victory simply because he clung to trust
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and said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
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The enemy was beaten by a mortal man who refused to let go of
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God's goodness. That is an incredible visual,
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and the listener participates in that victory actively as well.
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Whenever you help someone escape the grip of darkness, you are
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fighting back. Whenever you help a wandering
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child out of the gutters, whenever you share the truth and
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turn a Sinner from the error of their ways, you are actively
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treading on the serpent's head. You're taking back territory.
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You are pulling souls out of his Kingdom and proving the promise
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true that God's people shall trample the dragon under their
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feet. Understanding this cosmic
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reality and how it plays out internally should radically
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alter how you face tomorrow. The final section of our
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analysis extracts maximum encouragement from these ancient
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words. Let's look at Adam's reaction
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right after God spoke Genesis 3, verse 15.
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Adam had just heard the dreadful curses he knew he was condemned
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to till unyielding ground he was trembling.
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Ratifiably so. But his immediate reaction is a
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master class in faith. He turns and names his wife Eve,
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which means life. He does this because he fully
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trusts the promise of a coming seed.
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Even before she'd borne any children, he.
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Believed it before he saw it. He accepts the well deserved
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sentence of death with silence, but he vocalizes his simple
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faith in the promise of life. He didn't murmur or despair.
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He grabbed onto the promise. Standing in a dying garden,
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surrounded by the ruin he caused.
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He chooses to believe in life. Spurgeon introduces a rule for
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reading God's word based on this kind of faith.
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He calls it God's Math. The rule is this.
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With human promises, we learn to expect the minimum.
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People usually mean the bare minimum of what they commit to.
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Right under promise and over deliver is rare.
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If someone says they will help you, you expect a small favor,
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not a life altering intervention.
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But with God, we must expect the maximum.
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God does exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or even think.
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He always goes beyond. When God gives a promise, you
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should extract the absolute most out of it.
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We see God providing the maximum almost immediately in Genesis 3
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verse 21 with the coats of skins.
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Let's look at the mechanism of this provision.
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Adam and Eve had tried to cover their shame with fig leaves.
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Fig leaves are a mockery. They dry up, They fall apart.
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They represent human effort trying to fix a spiritual
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catastrophe. Just a Band-Aid on a.
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Bullet wound. It is mankind trying to cover
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their own internal guilt with external good works.
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God replaces those fig leaves with coats of skins.
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To get those skins, a victim had to die.
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Blood had to be shed. God Himself provided a close
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fitting garment procured through the death of a substitute.
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It is an early installment of the final overthrow, acting as a
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physical representation of the perfect righteousness that
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covers the believer, protecting them from the shame of their
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sin. As we move forward in history,
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we see how this confidence in the champion's victory allowed
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believers to face unimaginable suffering.
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Spurgeon shares an intense story about a Marian martyr.
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To give some context, this was back in the 1550s in England
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under Queen Mary the First, where Protestants were literally
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being burned at the stake for their faith.
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It was a brutal era of persecution.
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A woman condemned to be burned at the stake gave birth shortly
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before her execution, and she cried out in the pain of
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childbirth. Understandably.
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An adversary standing nearby mocked her, asking how she would
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bear to die in the fire if she made such a fuss over giving
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birth. Her response is chilling, but
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it's brilliant. She replied, Now I suffer in my
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own person as a woman, but then I shall not suffer, but Christ
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in me. She recognized that the
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persecution she was about to face was not just about her.
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It was the seed of the serpent attacking the seed of the woman.
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It's the ancient war playing out in real time.
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The devil didn't care about her personally.
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He hated the Christ who lived inside her.
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That perspective elevated her suffering and gave her the
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strength to endure martyrdom with exemplary patience.
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She knew the fire was just a bite at the heel.
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It gives purpose to the pushback.
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If you are facing trials for your faith, it is because you
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are carrying the champion inside you.
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We should meet that opposition with bold defiance.
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Look at Martin Luther. The famous historical anecdote
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is that Martin Luther, feeling sorely tempted by the devil
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while translating the Bible, picked up an ink stand and threw
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it at the devil's head. Which sounds a bit crazy today.
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While the physical act might seem absurd to modern
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sensibilities, Spurgeon extracts the real Take away Luther's
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entire life, the books he wrote, the truths he preached, the
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letters he sent was a continuous flinging of ink.
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Stands at the head of the Fiend. Every word was a weapon.
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Every time he proclaimed the gospel, he was striking a blow
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against the Kingdom of darkness. The devil is fighting a lost
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battle. He is contending against
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omnipotence, against the oath of the Father, and against the
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blood of the Son. His head is bruised and his
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legal authority is broken. You are encouraged to look at
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this defeated foe, laugh at his attempts to intimidate you, and
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boldly resist him, knowing the victory is already secure.
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The legal debt is paid, the tomb is empty, and the champion
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reigns. We have covered a massive scope
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today from a single sentence spoken in a ruined garden.
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We trace the biological anomaly of the virgin birth, the
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wilderness temptation, the legal mechanism of the cross, and the
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triumph of the resurrection. We moved from the cosmic defeat
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of Satan to the internal shift inside your own heart, from
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loving the apple of sin to conquering it through the
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champion formed within you. If we connect this historical
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reality to the battles you face tomorrow, it leaves us with a
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critical reflection. Consider that the very first
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Gospel promise wasn't delivered as a gentle comfort whispered to
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humans. It was delivered as a
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devastating declaration of war directly to the enemy's face.
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If God LED with an offensive strike to guarantee your
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deliverance, how does that shift the way you view the spiritual
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battle standing in front of you today?
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You aren't dealing with a murky diagnosis anymore.
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You aren't looking at a broken bone and wondering if it will
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heal. You are looking at an empty tomb
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and a crushed serpent. Thank you for joining us on this
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deep dive. Until next time, keep thinking.