LORD, Will You Forgive Me?

LORD, Will You Forgive Me? (Genesis 3:15)

Genesis 3:15, “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.”

Everyone’s conscience has a different setting. Some of us are more sensitive and don’t have to do much before we are deeply upset with ourselves. Others of us are more hardened and need more in order to convict us that we’re out of line. There is one thing that you have done, regardless of how long ago you did it, that creeps into your mind at the oddest times, when your guard is down. Something you just can’t let go of—that you think about far more often than you’d like. Something that you find unforgivable. No one needs to point it out to you because your conscience points it out. And because it lingers there in your conscience, you start to wonder, “If I can’t forgive myself, how can God forgive me?”

Genesis 3:15 is the first hope of God’s plan to defeat evil and restore His relationship with people. It predicts the full victory of God over Satan. It is the prophecy of a spiritual conflict between the woman’s offspring, the Lord Jesus Christ, and Satan’s evil forces. God promised that Christ would be born of a woman (Isaiah 7:14) and would be “struck” by His unjust death on the cross. Yet, He would rise from the dead to completely “crush” Satan, sin, and death in order to save the human race.

Let’s go back to the garden and look at the first human sin. The results of that sin were catastrophic: Man has lost everything that God gave him in the garden. He lost everything from his fellowship with God to his dominion over the earth and his hope. It plunged all of humanity into sin, so that we’re each born separated from the God in whose image we are made (Ephesians 2:1-3). It bound every one of our race to an inescapable death (Romans 5:12-14). It subjected the entire universe to the curse of frustration and decay, so that nothing works or lasts the way that it should (Romans 8:20-21). Nothing you have done, or ever will do, can begin to compare with the tragedy that Adam and Eve wrote for the rest of their descendants. Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).” When all is lost and the days are dark, even when there appears to be no hope, God steps in. Here we are under the curse of sin and subject to eternal death and damnation, but God stepped in. God often uses this little word “but” to turn our attention from the despair of sinfulness to the delight of the Saviour. He turns our minds from the awfulness of hell to the availability of hope. Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Redemption was not needed until mankind had sinned and violated God's law. But God didn’t sit back and watch the story unfold to its logical conclusion. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, into the world to pay the penalty for sin, to redeem mankind so we could be reconciled back to God. He didn’t abandon Adam and Eve, which gives you confidence that He won’t abandon you. He doesn’t simply forgive; He involves Himself in the plan. And he does this not just for humanity as a whole, but for you, as an individual, as well. About 4,000 years later this promise would be fulfilled by Jesus. In the Old Testament they looked forward by faith to what Jesus would do and in the New Testament we look back by faith to what Jesus did do. Anyone who gets to heaven will do so because they exercised faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as there is no other way to heaven. John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The question has never been “How good are you at being good?” It has always been “How good is God at being good when you are not?” Let yourself be captured then, not only by the depth of His goodness, but also by its breadth. Watch as His grace is greater than our sin, and your confidence will grow in how he responds to you personally.

Questions to Consider:
Think about the thing that most haunts your conscience. How does its result compare in size or scope to that of the first human sin?

Points to Ponder:
While it is true that we have the ability to ruin our own life, God’s ability to rescue and restore it is far greater.

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