Genesis 3 — Gerry Covenhoven

The First Promise of the Coming Savior

This morning, the first book of the Bible, beginning at chapter 3, which we were speaking on the last time I was here, and verse 15. The first Lithuanian prophecy in the scriptures where God originally tells about his promise in what would be quite veiled language, and yet a language that would stimulate the hearts of believers even back in those very early days.

Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15,. God says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, that is, between the serpent and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head. That is, the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the seed of the serpent and thou shalt bruise his heel, but the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman.

The Promises to Noah, Abraham, and Judah

Then in Genesis chapter 9, moving over a few pages, beginning at verse 24,. Genesis chapter 9 and verse 24,. And Noah awoke on his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall do his service. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall do his service. Chapter 12, verse 1.

Now, the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house into a land that I will show thee. I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thine name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Chapter 49 of Genesis, beginning at verse 8. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.

Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemy. Thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion'self. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He sleeps down, his house is a lion, and as an old lion, he shall douse him up.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a maw-giver from the king of sheep, until a trial comes, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal under the vine, and his handled foal under the twig vine, he wants his garnish in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grace.

His eyes shall be red with wine, and his feet white with milk. I think it's wonderful to recognize that God throughout the Old Testament did promise us concerning a coming new day, the one whom we recognize as having now come in the Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s Promises Meet Humanity’s Need

But, here starting right back in the days of Genesis, as we were considering the last one I was with you, we see how as soon as sin came in, as soon as there was any need, God says, I will meet that need.

I will provide for that need, and He promises here in verse 15 in this apparently enigmatic way, and yet in such a beautiful way as we can see from the New Testament especially, and even from the further unveiling of things as it goes along, step by step in the Old Testament, in these so-called Messianic prophecies, God speaks concerning His purpose to provide redemption for mankind.

In the first place, I think that we should recognize that all of these things, even though this morning we're only going to deal with four of them, the very beginning of the prophecy that God gave concerning the coming Savior, all of these things reveal the thoughts of God toward man, toward you and me.

It means that God loves us. It means that God recognizes our needs. It means that God sees that, apart from His help, we would be entirely lost, all of us, which is a broad way that leads to destruction, all of us ending up in that place that the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible call for.

Apart from that, what God has done, we would have no hope in this life, and we would be like other men. In fact, this world would not be the place that it is now. Now, it's interesting that there are two entirely opposing viewpoints of the progress that the world has made.

Now, I think that we can honestly say there has been progress. In a certain sense there has been degradation, but in another sense there has been progress. Some people speak of progress being made along evolutionary lines, and they think of mankind as simply by means of an evolutionary process, gradually progressing and gradually becoming better and better.

Well, it's an amazing thing that, as far as that is concerned, there is much to testify that mankind is getting worse and worse. I was just reading the other day about gangs of girls in Great Britain that are taken to waylaying people, and they just needed a life in waylaying elderly people, and they are worse than gangs of men, and they're mugging people when they find a person alone, why they will get that person down, and they don't do it in just a quiet, clean way, shall we say, if such a thing can be clean as a man might do it, but these girls will just attack in a strictly feminine way, scratching, screeching, getting the person down, stomping on the person, until finally they have gotten the money or whatever they want, and that the girls are doing it in a much more fierce way than the men ever did it.

They had trouble there in the 50s in England with gangs of young men, but now this latest phenomena is gangs of young women, and some of these young women are just acting alone, and some of them are coming from the very best of homes.

They have absolutely no material necessity for mugging people and getting money from them, but they're just taking it out as a type of perverse delight. Now, then, if this is any testimony as to what the world is coming to, well, we can say that things are getting worse and worse, but, after all, there has been a certain progress.

Christian Influence and Civilization

We know that there is a certain, at least, outward refinement of people's thoughts as to what has been happening in the world, and the desire to get away from wars and things of this nature, and yet is this because of a simply evolutionary way of doing things, as some would claim, or is this because of the influence that the word of God has had in time's past on civilization?

Now, it appears to me that some of the atrocities that there have been in the world today, or have been in the world in the past, have been modified by a Christian influence, or, shall we say, a Judeo-Christian influence.

That there has been, first of all, the revelation that God gave to the Jewish people, and then, finally, with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there has been the Christian revelation added to that, and as these things from God, then, have penetrated the world, at least to a small extent, there has been a modifying of all concepts and all thoughts.

Though, of course, we can see in these things that are happening today a resistance to these things, but we can say that the world in which we live is, generally speaking, a better place to live in, not simply because of scientific advances, not simply because of medical knowledge and things of this nature, but because of Christian influence.

In spite of the fact that we do have to admit that the Christian church has not done the job as she should have done, but at the same time there has been, at least in centuries past, a Christian influence that has had a tremendous impact upon the world in which we live.

But, all of this has its roots back in the Old Testament, and all of this is based upon promises that God gave, such as these four promises that we read back here, beginning with Genesis chapter 3. As soon as sin came into the world, God gives the man a promise, and he begins to speak here, as we notice here on a previous occasion.

Enmity Against Satan and the Fallen Human Will

God says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. God himself was going to take charge of this, of planting an enmity in the heart according to his way of thinking.

Now, let's start to think about this a moment. Had not Adam already manifested enmity? Had not Eve already manifested enmity? They certainly had, as we read there in chapter 3. They rebelled against God.

They manifested a certain enmity against God, as they thought that God was their enemy. God was holding things from them that they thought would be good to them, as Satan had just planted that little dot in their heart.

Has God really said that you shouldn't eat of all the trees of the garden? And Eve says, well, that's true. We shouldn't eat of all the trees of the garden. We can eat of all trees, except one that God says we should not eat of, and we shouldn't even touch that one.

And then Satan simply comes back and says, you will not die, as God has said, but in the day that you eat of that particular tree, you will become as God, or as God, whichever way you want to translate the word.

And that it is as though God is holding something back from you. And, you know, that worked on Eve, and that evidently worked on Adam as well, until they began to think, well, now it's right. God is holding something back from us.

God is denying us something that can be good for us. And so, there was an enmity that was expressed in their heart against God, and they rebelled, and they partook of the forbidden fruit, and they experienced sin, and as soon as they did, they realized how absolutely desperate they were in God's sense.

It didn't help them at all. It only became a matter of trouble to them. But now God says, all right, you've experienced enmity toward me, but I will place enmity between you and Satan. I will reverse your enmity, which now, as a fallen human being, you have naturally toward me, you naturally will rebel toward me.

But, he says, I want to put into your hearts an enmity against Satan, and all that Satan will produce. And this is tremendously important, that as human beings we recognize that in our hearts there is, by nature, a rebellion against God.

We don't want to experience any restrictions at all. We want to be masters of our own fate. We want to walk our own way. We want to do our own will. And we think of God as a big policeman up there in the sky that's going to prevent us from doing our own will.

Well, after all, if we'll only look at this thing sensibly, we will recognize that there are policemen all over the world in order to keep things in the right track and make it a livable place for everybody.

And, if you and I are to resist God because he's like a big policeman in the sky, we simply want to have anarchy here that will make this place an unfit place in which to live. There must be law and order, and even in God's kingdom, even in God's world, there must be law and order, and God is as one who would sit to have our obedience and our subjection and submission unto him for all this in order that he might bless.

I think that we've got to have this in mind because otherwise we might think that God wants to restrict us and keep us confined and prevent our development and our development as people. But, God knows how he created us, and God knows that only in working in obedience for him can we develop as people should develop.

Can we develop with the right enmity in our hearts? Enmity, now, not against God, but in that in that place, love toward God, obedience toward him, and enmity toward Satan and all that is evil, all that would seek to come in and ruin and spoil our lives and make them less than truly human being lives.

So, God has said that he will place this enmity in their hearts. Again, that which is wrong and would spoil their lives, and then he says concerning the seed of the woman, and marvelous how it just fits in perfectly into the prophecy that the Lord Jesus Christ was to be born of a virgin, that he was to be the seed of the woman, not of the man, that the man had nothing to do with the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But here's the, as this prophecy then is fulfilled completely in the Lord Jesus Christ as being the seed of the woman, and Satan then coming against him who was to bruise the heel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is what Satan did.

He's thought to do a lot more, but it's what Satan did upon the cross of Calvary, bruising the heel of the Lord Jesus Christ, seen to his crucifixion. He thought to do away with him, but what happened?

The scripture tells us that rather the Lord Jesus Christ bruised the head of Satan. Now, some translations make it crushed, here in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, that he was to crush the head of the serpent.

Christ’s Victory Over Satan Through the Cross

Now, in Colossians chapter 2, and we read this verse the last time, but I'd like to read it again because it's a tremendously important verse, as to what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross.

Verse 14, it says,. "...blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross, and there on the cross he spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.".

Spoiling principalities and powers, all of the hosts of Satan that the Lord Jesus Christ was able to spoil, and thus bruise or crush the head of Satan at that time. In Hebrews chapter 2, a similar word says,.

"...for as much then as the children are for takers of flesh and blood, he also himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, likewise took part of the same, that through death, through dying for us upon the cross, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, that Jesus Christ on the cross might destroy, or annul, him that had the power of death, that is the devil.".

This the Lord Jesus Christ did when he bruised his head through dying upon the cross, taking our sin upon him and making a atonement, making a redemption there for us. How wonderful it is to contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ and the victory that he won upon the cross for us.

Noah’s Drunkenness and the Shame of Sin

Then, moving ahead from this original prophecy that God gave concerning the Savior into chapter 9, here we have something that really comes out of a sad story, because Noah, a man who was righteous in all of his ways and perfect in all of his generations in the beginning, finds now that he is unable to control himself, and he plants a vineyard and squeezes the juice out of the grape, and makes wine, and drinks of the wine, and becomes drunk, and in his drunkenness there is shame involved.

But, it says here that Noah woke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him. Evidently, his younger son, Ham, had just poked fun of his father in this, and making his father a laughingstock, so that Noah now wakes up and once again Noah can speak now as having recovered from this shamefulness in which he was, but speaks now inspired of the Spirit of God.

First of all, he says, "'Cursed be Canaan!'. Now, it's interesting. Noah had these three sons. There was Can, Ham, and Jacob. Ham was his youngest son, but of these three, it does not in the prophecy speak directly of Ham.

It speaks of Ham's youngest son, his fourth son Canaan. Evidently, this fourth son Canaan was manifesting in a greater way the shameful character that was in Ham. He manifested a shameful character in mocking his father, but Canaan manifests an even more shameful character and in his descendants, who, as we can readily see here, Canaan, is the son Canaanite of the land of Palestine.

Do follow this through in the genealogies of Genesis. These people populated Palestine, and these people became an utterly degraded and corrupt people. Now, not only does the Bible speak about the iniquity of the Canaanites, but also archaeology has found abundant proof of the tremendous degradation in which these people found themselves.

Coming the time of the invasion of the Israelites into the land of Palestine, that very these people had become utterly perverse in all of their ways, and God had to judge that perversity. But here, the curse is pronounced upon Canaan, the father of those Canaanites, and it says, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brothers.

Or, literally, the very lowest of servants was to be king. Now, this was fulfilled in a very literal way, beginning in the days of Joshua, as the Jibrianites and then others of David were brought under the domination of the Israelitish people as they entered the land, and these people became servants.

They became slaves, is what the word literally means. That prophecy was fulfilled. But then verse 26 says that which is particularly concerning this table. He said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.

Now, it's interesting to notice the way he changes the format here. He no longer speaks concerning Shem directly, but he praises God. He says, blessed be the Lord God of Shem. Not that Shem shall be blessed by the Lord God, but blessed be the Lord God of Shem as he breaks into prayer, and it would seem to indicate here that the blessing is upon Shem because of the action of the Lord God.

Now, cursed is Canaan because of the action of Canaan, because he is a perverse person and his posterity shall be perverse. But blessed is the Lord God of Shem because God had chosen Shem, and follow the prophecy through as we will follow through to Abraham, which we read of there in chapter 12, and Abraham was of the posterity of Shem.

So that here he says, blessed be the Lord God of Shem, but we've got to go beyond that. We go on from Shem into Abraham, from Abraham into Isaac and Jacob, and on through into Judah as we find in chapter 49 where we read, and from the tribe of Judah comes David the king, and comes the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's a following genealogy through in the scriptures so that he says, blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and here, frankly, well, in the Spanish version it does not use this word Lord as we find it in the King James version, but it rather says, blessed be Jehovah God of Shem.

It uses that name of God, which is what the Hebrew actually says, and you'll notice that in your Bible the word Lord is spelled with four capital letters, and that is the indication that the Hebrew is Jehovah.

But, the name Jehovah, as we mentioned on a past occasion, speaks of the one who is eternal, who is unchanging, and who enters into covenant relationships with mankind. It's covenant relationships above all in the Lord Jesus Christ, and so when he speaks here then of blessing through God, exalting his name as it shall be exalted in Shem, it speaks then of God's purposes in redemption being fulfilled through Shem and his life, and here is a godly man, a man who acknowledges Jehovah God as his God, and who worships him, and serves him, and sought to live for him, and so Noah pronounces that blessing upon him.

Japheth, Shem, and the Spread of Salvation

And then, in verse 27, it says, God shall enlarge Japheth, speaking of the tremendous increase that there was to be in Japheth. Now, pausing for just a moment, the two sons of Noah, Japheth was the father of all the Indo-European races.

Ham is the father of the black races, especially the African races, and Shem is the father of all of the Shemites, the Arabs and the Jews, and all others that would pertain to that grouping of mankind.

Now then, this particular group of mankind does not show us the four or five races of men, but it simply shows how these things began. Now then, as to these, the Indo-European, as we find in verse 27, God shall enlarge Japheth.

They, of course, are the ones who have increased so in posterity so that the vast majority of people living today belong to the lineage of Shem. The Indo-European and the majority of our Americans today are of this body of people, and so here Noah is prophesying concerning this tremendous enlargement of Japheth, but it says he shall dwell in the tent of Shem.

Now, Shem was not going to be increased as greatly as was Japheth, but Japheth was to find a dwelling place in the tent of Shem. Now, it simply means that dwelling in the tent of Shem there was to be fellowship, and there was to be fellowship on the basis of what Shem had to offer, and Shem offers us the scriptures and the sages as they come through the Jews from Shem, through the Jews, through the Lord Jesus Christ, so that finally we can come down to salvation.

It speaks, then, of Gentile people entering into God's salvation, but then notice also here it says, "...and Canaan shall be his servant.". Now, then whether it means that Canaan is to be the servant of Shem or Canaan, as we said previously in verse 26, that Canaan was to be the servant of Shem or of Japheth, it means that Canaan is also going to participate in these blessings.

As we can see with the gospel going out to the black peoples of the world today, these same blessings on an equal basis are given to the black, as well as to those descending from Japheth. In the New Testament, it is interesting to notice how the gospel goes out to those from all of these three groups.

In the first place, on the day of Pentecost, there were Jewish people that embraced faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and with faith in Him they were of the lineage of Shem. Then the gospel goes out to the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8, who is of the lineage of Ham, and then the gospel goes out to Cornelius, who is of the lineage of Japheth.

So, if the gospel goes out to all of these three branches of the human race, as it says here, that these shall dwell in the sense of Shem. Entering into the spiritual blessings that Shem has brought to us, the Bible, redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ, all of these things have come down to us through the Jewish people of the lineage of Shem.

Abraham’s Blessing for All Nations

Turning on to chapter 12, you see how God is gradually narrowing the picture now? He's not taking from all of the Shemites, but of one man of the Shemites, Abraham. And here in Abraham, particularly as he says in verse 3, I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

I think it is worthwhile to keep in mind that God has said that anyone who would bless the descendants of Abraham would be blessed, and anyone who cursed, or sought to harm or hinder the descendants of Abraham would be cursed.

Any nation that has in the past risen up against the Jewish people has received a righteous judgment from God. He still takes care of those people, even though those people today do not, as a nation, as a people, acknowledge the Savior.

God still takes care of them, and the Bible does say in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 that there is coming a day when the gospel will reach in a marvelous way amongst the Jewish people, and many of these people shall be converted to a certain knowledge of what I just described.

But the great blessing here is, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. God is going to bring blessing to the whole wide earth through choosing one man back there 2 ,000 years before Christ.

He chooses one man, and we know how it develops as we see it in the scripture, that from that one man developed the Jewish race, the Jewish nation rather, and from the Jewish nation, in the Jewish nation, God gives his word, and we get the Old Testament scriptures from them, and may I say even the New Testament scriptures were written by Jewish people except for the gospel of Luke and the Acts.

The only two books of the whole 66 of the Bible that were not written by Jewish people, and here then in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This is taken up in the New Testament in Colossians chapter 3.

Paul takes that same prophecy and says in verse 8, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed.

So then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. And verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made, he says, from one unto thy seed, which is Christ, it comes through Abraham, through Christ.

So verse 29 says, and if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and Abraham's seed, and from his day, and his truth, and Abraham's youth, and his truth. So now, in concluding, let's turn to Genesis chapter 29, where we get this marvelous prophecy of Jacob,.