Easter Sermon 2019
Galatians 3:10-14
In the
year 1755, on what seemed to be another typical Saturday morning in Lisbon,
Portugal, a powerful earthquake (a magnitude somewhere between an 8.5-9.0)
nearly destroyed the city of Lisbon. The
churches were full that morning, because it was All Saints Day and 30 churches
were turned to rubble with an estimated 10,000 – 100,000 casualties. The French philosopher, Voltaire, responded with
a question that, no doubt, echoes what many have asked in the wake of such
tragedies: “How could anybody now believe in the benevolence and omnipotence of
God?” Some have concluded that because
evil and suffering exist, God is neither good nor almighty.
The Bible
does not provide and explanation for why God allowed suffering and evil in the
first place. What the Bible does do, however,
is explain the origin of evil and suffering and provides an explanation for how
that evil and suffering will, one day, be overcome. Galatians 3:10-14 tells us how the Cross is
our guarantee that Evil and suffering will be overcome once and for all.
Our Problem
Our
problem, according to the Bible, is that we are all under a curse. The origin of our problem is ancient and can
be traced all the way back to a garden.
We are told that in the beginning, God created everything and all of it
was good. The first human couple, Adam
and Eve, were given the freedom to enjoy everything in the garden, but were not
permitted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.
2:16-17). It is in the garden that we
are introduced to a Serpent, who is also known by a host of other names such as
Lucifer (Isa. 14:12), the Adversary (1 Peter 5:8), the Deceiver (Rev. 12:9),
the Devil (1 John 3:8), and Satan, to name five.
Genesis 3,
shows Eve with Adam before the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil talking
to the serpent. “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’”
asked the serpent. This question was his way of getting Adam and Eve to
question the truthfulness and good of God. Satan also told the couple that they
would not die if they ate the fruit even though God said that they would. Adam and Eve believed the serpent and ate the
fruit that God told them not to eat. Jesus
said of the serpent that he, “was a
murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he lies,
he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies”
(John 8:44).
Because of
Adam and Eve’s sin, a curse was place upon them and the creation for which they
were supposed to care and manage. To the
woman, God promised that in the giving of life, she would be reminded of death.
To the man, God promised that in the bringing of life from the ground he would
be reminded of death. Both Adam and Eve,
and all who would come after them, would lose to the great enemy of life, which
is death.
However, of
the serpent, God promised: “I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). In other words, what God promised Adam and
Eve was that one would be born out of the human race who would destroy the
serpent, but not without the serpent first wounding him.
Every single one of us was born into the world, cursed,
with a nature bent on sinning. Satan is
not the cause of most of the world’s evil and suffering; likewise, neither are his
demons the cause for most of the evil and suffering in the world. We are the cause of most of the evil and
suffering in the world. We may not be
the cause for catastrophic earthquakes, tornados, or tsunamis, but the sin
problem of humanity is linked to preventable diseases, world hunger, poverty,
trafficking of children, slavery, and so much more. We are a cursed race in great need of a
deliverer that God promised he would one day send.
Our Need
What does
it mean to be cursed?
