The Skull Crusher in the Bible

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Previously, on the Image Bearer

If you're visiting with us today on this Shabbat, glad you're here. Welcome. You should know that you've walked in to the middle of a short mini-series and we're about three messages in to this short series, which means you kind of sat down in the middle of the show, you know, the movie if you will. And so I'd like to take about 30 seconds. You know, like when you when you tune back into a show that goes on every week and the first 30 seconds are like previously on The Andy Griffith Show or whatever, you know, and they get you caught up on all the drama that Right? So I'm I'm going to I'm going to do that now and kind of get us caught up on the last two messages because this is probably one of my favorite topics of the Bible.

I say that every week, but this week this is definitely it. And so we're going to we're going to dive in. And so week one we started out with discussing we found out what we are and our vocation according to Genesis. We are, the Bible calls it a selem in Hebrew, an image. We spoke about being made in being made as God's image instead of in God's image. And a selem is a statue. It's a statue of the living God in the Bible that he breathed alive for the purpose to rule the world on his behalf. That's in the context of the ancient Near East and how people biblical times would have perceived the idea of being made in God's image.

To rule. That's what man was called to do on Earth, to rule. To rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, everything that crawls on the ground, the wild beasts. All of it was under humans. And never the other way around. And that's God's design in Genesis chapter 1. And then last week we kind of watched that whole concept fall apart really fast, if you remember. What takes place in the story of the Garden of Eden? Well, a wild beast, it says, comes into the garden and just starts talking. And an image of God starts to listen. As if it's completely normal for a snake to just come up to you and start talking, right?

And not only did the image listen, but the image is now talking back and taking theological advice from a wild beast that's supposed to be under their rule. She saw. She took. And her husband was standing right there beside her, and he ate, too. And by the end of the chapter, these two individuals, Adam and Eve, were stripped naked, and they were being pushed out of the gate of the only place that they had intimacy with God, in the garden. And they were pushed out into the fields to scrounge their food from the ground and eat the same place the wild animals eat. They have lowered themselves, all right, through their punishment.

Because that's what sin does to an image-bearer. It never makes you more like God. It makes you less human. Less able to fulfill your vocation of what you were called to do. So, that's the 30 seconds, right? God is determining at this point in time, we have the Adam and Eve, and they have fallen, they've eaten the fruit, and now they're blaming each other, which is a hilarious. Like if you read it, just read the chapter. It's He did it. No, she did it. It was the snake. I mean, it's just pointing, right? Shifting blame. If you hadn't given me the woman, I wouldn't have done this, you know? It's amazing.

Teenagers, right? Arguing with God. And so, God's God's trying to consider he says, "Okay, what consequences do I need to dish out for this?" Cuz this is a very severe I mean, they've wrecked the whole thing. The whole thing's imploded. And he's looking at the snake and the win and the woman. And we would expect him to start with Adam, right? I mean, the priest, the guy who is supposed to be protecting. Adam is the first one that gets the I guess we're not whipping. That's That's 2026. We can't do that anymore. But when I was growing up, it would be a whipping, right? No, who does God speak to first?

He turns to the snake. The serpent. And watch what he says over the serpent here. He says, "So, now the serpent I have too many slides. So, the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any other livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust for all of the days of your life." Belly down, face in the dirt, munching on dust, mouth just full of it all the days of your life. We have the image of a defeated snake face down in the dust. All right? And remember, because some of us, if you're like me, you kind of look at that punishment and like, "Man, like Eve got that childbirth thing.

Adam's out there, he's going to rake the land just to try to get some food. And the snake gets to crawl on its belly? Eh. Like, I would expect something more dramatic, right? Sometimes the Bible is not trying When it makes a point, it's not always trying to argue something that's scientific. Sometimes it's just trying to set you up with a hyperlink. Like we discussed last week. Sometimes it's planning a little clue that is going to sprout and bloom in a later story. Not to spoil anything. So, just remember that, right? So, the snake is now face down, defeated in the dust. And we went over what the snake is called.

The First Gospel, Buried in a Curse

So, the Hebrew word for snake, if you remember, is nakash. Everybody say nakash. It was only about 20% of the in the middle and we need to raise that up to about a 80%. So, nakash. That was That was great. And right in the middle of God giving this consequence to the snake, this curse, he stops and he makes a promise. And this promise is called the protoevangelium, right? Protoevangelium. Almost sounds like an anime film where someone's going to turn blonde hair and blow up a city, right? Protoevangelium is just a term that's made for this promise in Genesis 3:15 and it just means the first gospel.

It's the first good news. It is the gospel message in Genesis 3 15 and here's the promise. God says, he says, "You know what? I'm going to put hostility between you and the woman." He's speaking to the snake. "And between your offspring and her offspring and he, the seed of the woman, is going to strike or crush your head and you will strike and crush his heel." That's the promise. So, here we have two family lines starting out in the beginning of the Bible. And the entire Bible is talking about the war that they are involved in against each other. The seed of the woman and the seed of this serpent, who is the wild beast, who is taking over, if you will, trying to deceive mankind and flip mankind's authority on itself and rule.

Seed of the serpent. And the seed of the serpent, we get confused cuz we're like, okay, a seed is like lineage and then it was so this is talking about the serpent's grandchildren. I'm not going to sit here and say the serpent's going to have grandchildren. There's some weird stuff out there, commentaries, stop it. No. The seed of the serpent is every human who takes up the serpent's way of life. Selfish, self-seeking, grabbing what it wants at the expense of whoever is in the way. It's the ethic of the beast, if you will. And then there's the seed of the woman. One day one day God says a son is coming from the woman's line and he will crush the head of the snake.

And when he crushes the head of the snake, he's going to crush the ethic of the beast with it. But read the fine print here. You will strike his heel. It's the same word that's used in both correction both directions, crush, strike, wound. And we can imagine that if you're going to step on a deadly snake, right? That's not that big of a deal, right? In the promise, you just wear some combat boots and you'll be okay. That's not The picture here is a bare heel coming down and squashing and crushing and oblitera- obliterating a venomous snake. The head's getting crushed, but the fangs, man, the fangs somehow get one up on the crusher.

The fangs enter into the body of the poison gets poured in. The strike that kills the snake is going to cost the son. And so Adam and Eve, they go out the door, the gate. We have the angels that are blocking the way now. They can't reenter and humanity walks eastward carrying one promise from God and that's this one. A son is coming. And again, from this moment on in the Bible, the one question looms. Where is the son who's going to crush the head of the snake? So, where do we start from here? Well, let's go ahead and turn to the chapter like we did last week and we'll revisit we'll revisit the Cain story.

Because you turn the very next page and we have this verse. A man was intimate with his wife Eve and she conceived and gave birth to Cain and she says, "I've gotten a man with the Lord's help." The first baby ever is born. And again, listen to Eve. I've gotten man's help from the Lord. Great timing. A promise was made. A son's going to come. You're going to kill the serpent. She has a baby. You know she's excited. This is it. This is the one. Right? And no. We know what happens in the story of Cain and Abel. Cain is immediately swayed by the beast. His offering is not accepted. His brother's is.

Cain burns with jealousy and God comes to him very personally. And he says, "If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching like a beast, crouching at the door. Its desire is for you. Remember what you were created to do as God's image bearer and rule over it. You already have the authority. You already have the strength. You have everything you need. Don't let it talk to you." Sound familiar? So, what happens? Well, Cain does not rule over the beast at the door, sin, he becomes the beast. And he brings his brother out into the field where the wild beasts are and he rips him apart.

Cain, and Whose Son You Are

He kills him. He kills him. And centuries later, millennia later, John writes about this very thing in 1 John 3:12. And he says, Oh, Lord. 1 John 3:12, he says, "Unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother." John says of the evil I don't think the slide's there. Of the evil one. Cain was not a seed of the serpent, he was a seed of Eve. His bloodline was from Eve, right? He belonged to Eve, but his behavior his behavior belonged to the snake. Your allegiance determines your lineage. The first candidate to be the skull crusher doesn't crush the skull, instead he joins the serpent.

He joins him. That idea, your allegiance decides whose kid you are, right? And that's that's something that Yeshua also talks about. In John 8:44. Really? All my slides are all Okay, here we go. We're caught up. Apologies. Remember when Yeshua he's he's speaking to the most esteemed elite Torah scholars, Jewish Pharisees, the pastors of the community. I mean, these are the guys, right? And he speaks to them and he says to them, "You are of your father the devil. And you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him."

Candidate After Candidate

Your father the devil. By blood, these were the sons of Abraham. By behavior, they are the sons of the serpent. A murderer from the Who's the murderer at the beginning of the book? It's It's Cain. Right? Cain is standing right behind this whole scene. That's the imagery. Right? Again, snakes don't have grandchildren. But it seems the serpent never really had a problem finding sons. So, is Cain the skull crusher that we were hoping that he would be? Nope, not Cain. Let's keep Let's keep moving along. I mean, there has to be more candidates in the Bible. Maybe Who's another big one? Abraham. Abram.

I mean, that's that's the godfather. Like, that's the dad, right? Patriarch. Father We have songs about him. Father Abraham. Many sons. Right? Maybe he's the skull crusher. Except for that thing he did with Sarah in Egypt. She didn't really appreciate that. And then he did it again. It's like he did twice. Definitely not the skull crusher. Not a good look. Nope. Especially after the Hagar incident we talked about, right? Where they the literal scene of the fall of mankind in the garden is acted out as Sarah saw her servant Hagar, took her and turned and gave her to her husband. To try to assume the position of God to force God's promises.

Not the one. Not a good candidate. But what about Jacob? Cuz Jacob, I mean that's his wrestled with God, right? Walked away with a limp, but he had a blessing, which is kind of how it works, I guess. Lord knows. But his name was changed to Israel. So like obviously he's the candidate, right? Well, the biblical authors have a lot of fun painting him and his brother in a very specific light intentionally in the Bible. Remember his brother Esau? Esau comes out of the womb hairy like a beast. He's a man of the field where the wild beasts are. And sure enough he thinks like one. We see this with the whole soup incident, right?

If you hold a steak and a hot dog in front of a dog, what's he going to go for? The one he can get the fastest. That's that's a beastly nature. You see it, you take it. Bowl of soup, right? Gone. Birthright's gone. Just pure appetite. But then we have Jacob. And the text goes out of his way to describe Jacob not as a hairy beast, but as having smooth skin, slippery skin. Skin that you might attribute to a deceiver. The serpent. Someone got it. Thank you. It was I worked too hard for that, I guess. I Yeah, slippery skin. Right? One brother acts like a beast and the other one talks like a snake when he goes in and deceives his own father.

Even inside the family of promise, two seeds are wrestling. And it's the same story, just the different characters, right? Not Jacob, either. And on it goes. Where is the son of the prophesied serpent skull crusher that is going to defeat the serpent once and for all? Within the family of promise, goes on and they multiply in Egypt. And then they become enslaved in Egypt. And the thing about ancient Egypt is Pharaoh, who was seen as the image of God, in their myth, they would they would wear something very special. And here's here we have King Tut's. This is a recreation of what King Tut wore and what we have found on his death mask when we found it.

The Serpent on Pharaoh's Forehead

A snake. Emblem of Pharaoh's divine power over the empire, which is so appropriate. Right? The most powerful man on the planet woke up every morning and he strapped a serpent to his forehead. His allegiance sitting right there on his face where the whole world could see whose seed he was. He's a leader of an empire. And that's kind of the message of the Bible is all empires serve the serpent. That's why they're empires. That's the that's that's the whole thing of Revelation. Whole thing of Revelation is charging Christians not to fall for the myth that you can make an empire, an empire of God instead of the serpent.

Because when you start to do that there's a beast in there, a false prophet in Revelation that is mixing the two together and trying to get your allegiance to serve empire through worship of God. And the people that do that, they get a mark of the beast, right? And what's the first thing the serpent crowned king does in the story of the Exodus? Pharaoh then commanded all of his people, "You must throw every Apparently the snake, the serpent heard the promise, too. A son of a woman is coming for his head. So the serpent's kingdom has to go after the sons. Has to. If you guys are reading your Bible and it's boring you're reading it wrong.

You with me? You still good? So in the story of the Exodus, what happens next? God sends Moshe, Moses. And the first scene out of the conflict of Moses coming in, Aaron, the whole thing is Aaron's staff gets thrown down on the ground. And remember what God turns it into? Say the Hebrew word with me. A na hash. A serpent. God It's as if God's ripping off the snake from Pharaoh's crown and throwing it on the floor, right? In the throne room. And then the magicians come in and the magicians throw their sticks in the ground and they turn into snakes, but what happens next in verse 12 of chapter 7?

Each one threw down his staff and it became a serpent, but Aaron's staff swallowed It says what? That the earth swallowed them. It's a hyperlink. They're They're It's prophetic, if you will. It's It's supposed to have that connection. The swallowing of the serpent, right? The Bible's so cool. And when they got to the other side, and much later, we have a song written in songs that celebrates this. And here's what they Here's a song talking about the victory that took place that day. It says this in Psalm 74, "You divided the sea with your anaconda, but really big, right? A lot of cultures recognize this as a monster of chaos.

But here it's Yeah, you crush the head of the serpent, the leviathan. Israel remembered the Exodus as a head crushing that took place. So, does that mean Moses is the one? Is he the son that's going to crush the head of the I mean, it happened, right? Closest one yet, but unfortunately, no. No, Moses disobeys in the wilderness and he dies outside the land like every other son of Adam. So, be nice to rocks, kids. But, the question is still open. The question we want answered. Get to the skull crusher. We're ready for it. Where is it? Where is the snake stomper? Where is the slither slayer? Where is the cobra clobberer?

Where's the viper wiper? We get to the book of Judges. Which the book of Judges is beautiful because it is a downward spiral starting at the beginning. It's a downward spiral of what it looks like to lose touch of who your God is and who you even serve. Right? And every example of everything is just farther and farther away from being an image bearer that you were meant to be and pretending that you're not. Just the whole Bible, which is the story of probably all of our lives trying to struggle with that tension, right? Of saying no to the fruit. So, the book of Judges, Israel is being oppressed for 20 years or so by this Canaanite warlord named Sisera.

He had 900 iron chariots. The ethic of the beast personified. And God shatters his army, and then Sisera, he's running for his life at this point. He's lost the battle. He's trying to run away. He's on foot. And he runs straight into this nice little tent of a woman named Jael. Such a sweet name. And just like Eve once took food from the serpent, now the serpent seed is taking food from the woman. She gives him some milk. And after a long hot day running, milk does the body good. He passed out and went to sleep. Right? She tucks him in like a little mama, the whole thing. And he she feels safe.

The Women Who Crushed Heads

He thinks. And then Well, then Yael Let's see. She reached for a tent peg. Faced down in the dirt with his head crushed. She crushed his head. And look where he ends up, at her feet. And the song repeats, right? Where does the Where does the serpent belong? Under our feet. And in the next chapter, there is a song being sung that celebrates her. Deborah's song. And she calls Yael. She says, "Most blessed of women is Yael, the wife of blessed among women." Who What is Yael? Most blessed among women. So, we have the prototype of the woman who is at war with the serpent in the very beginning. And who is echoing what her seed is destined to do.

And the Bible calls her the most blessed woman because the prototype of what her seed is going to do is going to kill the serpent. Some people would say, "Well, Matt, the scripture doesn't say that a woman's going to crush his head." And it's true. A son is going to come from a woman. But why do we see continually throughout scripture, there's several examples of women crushing the head of the serpent? Because the authors are doing that on purpose. They want to reinforce that God never said the crusher would come from Adam's side. The son is going to come from the woman. The woman is in the promise by name.

She's a key part of it. So, every time a daughter of Eve stands over a crushed skull of the serpent, the author is wanting you to think back to Genesis 3:15. The promise is still alive. It's still echoing throughout the scripture. The woman's line is still in the war. And her son is still coming. So, the women are not the fulfillment, of course. They are the absolute herald of it. And in Judges 9, just a few chapters later, we meet a tyrant known as or named Abimelech. And he murders 70 of his own brothers just to grab the crown. He's acting like a beast. I'll do anything to get the crown on my head.

And he takes it. And you know the play, right now? He puts all these people in a tower and he starts to light it on fire cuz he wants to burn all these innocent people alive, right? Burn them all. Ah. But a woman threw an upper portion of a millstone on Abimelech's head and fractured his skull. Spends his dying breath in the narrative begging his armor-bearer, "Run me through." I mean, obviously something's messed up. He "Kill me. Kill me. So, they won't say a woman killed me." His story is recorded as being killed by a woman on the most number one sold book in the world. It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. She stopped the serpent. She crushed the head, right? Love it. But, there is a clause. We got to check the wounds. We got to check. Jael walks away without a scratch. So, does the woman in the tower. No one's heel got struck. No cost. Which means that we're not done yet. It's not the end. You can crush a servant of the serpent all day long and the servant serpent just keeps on moving to another host. So, where is the son? We go up through and we learn about a story that takes place in a large field between a giant and a shepherd named David. It's in 1 Samuel 17. It's a showdown, David and Goliath.

And we know the story. We went to the movies. We've seen the cartoon. It's cute, you know. Out of all the enemies of the whole Bible, enemies of Israel, why does the narrator hit pause on this story and spend six entire verses telling you about the details of the giant's outfit? Maybe he was into fashion. Maybe he thought he looked pretty cool, right? Here we go. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scales armor of bronze. Scale armor. Hebrew word there is kasakaset. Right? So, word is word that means scales on like a on like a fish or a reptile.

A Giant Dressed as a Snake

And the only other person that's ever described as wearing scales is Pharaoh in Ezekiel 29. Where God calls him the great dragon, the serpentine. And what are the scales made of if you missed it? Bronze. Bronze. Bronze helmet, bronze armor, bronze is on his legs, bronze javelin, probably bronze teeth. Four times in three verses the word bronze is repeated over and over and over again. And the Hebrew word for bronze is nekashet. Everybody say nekashet. Yeah, you hear it? Nekashet. Every time the author names the metal, can hear the hissing. Hear the hissing. He's dressing the giant up so that he looks like a snake in the narrative.

So, that's why he's doing that on purpose. A 9-ft tall snake standing in a valley defying the armies of the living God. And down the hill comes the shepherd boy. Hunky-dory, no armor. Who needs it? I got God. Yes. No sword. He has a little sling with five smooth stones. You guys know what happened? David put his hand in the bag. He took out a stone and slung it. It hit the Philistine in the forehead. A giant dressed as a snake takes the blow to the head and he lands on his belly with his face in the dirt in front of two armies. And then David takes the giant's sword and removes his head completely.

And just a few chapters earlier, the author's already kind of hinted to this with the whole Dagon incident. With the Philistines when they captured the ark. And they put it in the same room as their statue to Dagon. And they came in and Dagon came in and his hands were cut off and his head had been removed. Face down before the Lord. So, is it David? Is David the skull cra- I mean, that is a is pretty good candidate, right? The people definitely thought so. They were dancing in the streets. They were already writing songs about him after this huge defeat. They said Saul has struck down his thousands, but David has struck down 10,000s.

Surely this is the son. This is the great king. This is the one. Where's David's wound? There isn't one. And you watch what happens next. Saul, King Saul hears the songs being sung. And the text says that Saul became very angry. Jealously moves into the king the same way it moved into Cain. The attitude of the serpent died in Goliath, but it's re-emerged in Saul now. It's that quick. It's like a scene out of the Exorcist. It hopped to another host, if you will. And then years later, the giant killer himself walks out onto the rooftop. And he sees, and he sins, and he takes. And the head crusher starts living by the ethic of the beast.

And that right there is that's the Old Testament. That's the story. That's the tension. Candidate after candidate after candidate. And the evil just keeps getting back up. We can't keep it down. Why? Because the serpent's fortress was never some giant out in a valley. It was always the human heart. David's heart. My heart. Your heart. And a stone can crush the skull of a giant and drop him down, but a stone cannot fix a heart. Where is the son that is going to win this fight? After the last prophet spoke, Malachi, there was 400 years of silence. And then, a teenage girl from a very small village called Nazareth.

She's visiting her cousin. Her cousin's name is Elizabeth. And she's carrying a child that no man gave her. Every candidate so far had a human father. This child, the one time in history, is literally the seed of the woman. And Elizabeth is filled with the Ruach and she starts shouting, as you would. And here's what she says. She exclaimed with a loud Guys, there's only one other woman in the entire Bible that carries that blessing. That phrase. And that is the woman with a warrior's heart, Jael. In Judges. The woman with the tent peg and the hammer and the milk. The skull crusher's blessing is what this is.

Hung on a pregnant woman. And blessed is the child that you carry. The son is here. And so what does Mary do? Mary starts to sing the Magnificat. Let's read some of it. She writes this big song. She says, "He has done a mighty deed with his arm. He has scattered the proud because Israel's women have been singing war songs since Miriam sang the song over Pharaoh's drowned army and Deborah sang the song over Sisera's crushed skull. But, Deborah sang her song after the battle. Mary sings hers before. She rings the victory bell, the victory song, while the skull crusher is still being knit together in her womb.

The earliest believers called Mary the new Eve. Eve was called woman. Right? It's what it's what I mean. Eve. The woman. And Yeshua at the wedding at Cana Yeshua calls his mom what? Seems so disrespectful when he does it. Woman. No, John's whole setup is pointing back to the story. He's like, yeah, this is the new Eve, because a new creation is coming, and a new Adam is coming, and a new everything is coming. Woman. Alert. Spoiler. Right? Yeshua calls his mom woman twice in John. One was at the wedding at Cana, and the other one was at the foot of the cross. Just so you'd recognize it. Eve listened to a snake and doubted.

But, Mary listened to an angel, and she believed. Eve stood by Adam at the tree where the war began. And Mary will stand by her son at the tree where it ends. And the old serpent knew who had arrived. Herod hears about the Magi and that this king had been born. And so, what does Herod do? He tries deception first. He's He sent them to and said, "Go Look at elliptic imagery of that fight, the serpent trying to kill the son. The same dragon that was behind Pharaoh, the same dragon behind Herod. The boy grows. The boy grows and he saw but he didn't take. The serpent can't deceive this one. Out in the wilderness, he tried.

The Crusher Got Crushed

"I will give you the empires of the earth cuz they're all mine. Look out there." Jesus will not take the empire. That's not how he works. He's the king of a kingdom. So, the serpent tries to devour him and it all comes down to one hill. The last place on earth you would look for a victorious serpent crusher. Nailed to a Roman cross. Bleeding out in front of a mocking or morning crowd. But look at the name of the hill that Jesus died on. All four Gospels stop to let you know the name of this hill. John even writes it in two different languages just in case you missed the first time. Carrying the cross by himself, he went Golgotha.

It's a Hebrew word for skull. Place of the skull. The word The world for that's the same word that was used for what the millstone fractured. When she threw it off of the thing. It's the same word for what got chopped off the giant. The skull. The Golgotha. Golgotha. Golgotha. And the war is about to end on a hill that has been called skull for so long and no one even remembers why. And what does Rome bring out to the place of the skull when this is all going on? They bring out a hammer and a couple of iron pegs. And they drive them through his hands and his feet. Where have we seen a hammer and nails before?

It's the Jael story. The most blessed of women when she drove them through the head of God's enemy. Now the hammer and the peg come again and this time they're going into the son of the one that is called blessed among women. The peg doesn't go through the serpent. It goes through the seed of the woman. The heel. And he empties everything he has into it. Shame, death itself, every last drop of venom pushed in. And that's what builds up the whole plot twist. I always love to say irony is God's love language. The whole plot twist is that strike was a trap the whole time. I got my little images here.

Hebrews says, "Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these so that through his death through his death he might destroy the one holding power of death that is the devil." That's the protoevangelium. That's the promise of Genesis 3:15. The son is going to get struck Through his death he might destroy. The devil's one weapon. The thing that has held every child of Adam hostage since Eden is death. And on the skull hill the serpent sank that weapon into the one human being death could not hold. He absorbed the to the very last drop and he broke the fangs off in the wound.

Isaiah spoke about that. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. The punishment for our peace was upon him. And we are healed by his wound. Crushed. You see it? The serpent beat the first Adam under a tree and the last Adam beat the serpent on a tree by taking the crushing of our treason. The crusher got crushed. And the crushing was the victory. And nobody writes a story quite like this except for God. It's amazing. Paul says, he speaks to the letter in Colossians, church in Colossians, says, "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced to them publicly.

He Disarmed, disgraced publicly. That's the face down in the dirt language. And on the third morning, the heel that took the peg walked out of the garden tomb. The head is crushed. The sun has come. And how permanent is it? Well, when Isaiah describes the world made new, he says that wolves are grazing with lambs, lions are eating straw. And then there's a line that stands out. And what Isaiah is setting up with this prophecy about the lamb will lie down with the What he's trying to illustrate is that we're now living in a world where no one has to be a beast at someone else's expense. No one is dying just because you want something.

It's illustrating that metaphorically through this imagery. But there's one line that stands out. Do you remember it? But the serpent's food will be dust. That's Every curse undone, every tear wiped away, and one sentence from Eden stays there forever. The snake stays face down under the feet the world without end. So that's super cool. I love this type of hyperlinks. I love how the Bible is written this way. Cuz it gets me excited and it's not boring and it's amazing. But what does that have to do with us? Aside from how cool it is, right? Well, there's application in this too because remember your job as an image bearer, the image of God.

You're supposed to rule. Well, God's supposed to rule through you. You're supposed to make creation and guard it. And plant and weed and take care of it through God's spirit that manifests through you. AKA his love and his grace and his forgiveness and mercy and all the things that we love to talk about but are kind of harder to do sometimes. That's what an image bearer is. It is the reflection of the deity it represents. And with that charge, with that authority, God-given authority, Paul makes this claim to the church of Romans. He says the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. the god of war.

Love that. Empire's war. No, this is the god of peace. The god of peace. You can't crush a serpent by becoming one. That's the beast's ethic. The head was crushed with open arms and open hands. By the heel that accepted the plague the peg. The serpent was crushed but with self-giving love. And that's still how it dies in every one of our lives today. When we choose to say, I'm going to be a seed of the most blessed woman. I'm going to be a seed of the woman. I'm going to be of the lineage of God's seed. Because that is what my allegiance is going to represent. And when we make that choice to say, I pledge allegiance to God's kingdom and everything he is.

That's when we have the power. That's when we have the vocation fulfilled. But that's also when we have to start doing our job and part of that job is making the choice. Are we going to listen to the words of the serpent and make him our dad? Or are we going to stay true to the good father? Because if that's the case, we have the authority to crush, too. The victory is given to us through Christ. And so, honesty time. What area of your life is still committed to the ethic of the beast? Where has sin crouched and is waiting? It's waiting to be fed because you always feed it. Could be in relationships, could be marriage, could be your money, you know the top five.

Your pride, oh. You don't have to tell me, I understand. I understand. You're not fighting a life snake anymore, you're you're finishing off the one that's been crushed. That's the power that's being offered. That's the victory that's being offered. Sometimes it still thrashes. Whips his tail around in its defeat. Maybe sometimes it feels like it can still bite. But the one thing we know if we believe the word of God is that it can never win. It can never win. Because the war is already over. So when that old voice or vice starts up whispering did God really say? You don't have to argue with it.

It's beneath you, A. No, you just My king's already took your best shot. And I watched you land face down. And you've been eating dust ever since. And when the accuser hisses that you could never belong to the living God I want you to point to the skull hill that had a stake shoved right through it. The venom that you're threatening me with was emptied into him and there's nothing left for me. That's what we're called to do. Or at least the choice. Do we live in the ethic of the king or the ethic of the beast? And so, the question that ticks through the whole Bible, that we find scattered abroad, different hyperlinks connecting them all together, it has its answer.

Where is the son who crushes the head of the serpent? The snake. He came, he was struck, he was crushed. And he lives. But one question still sitting throughout this series is we know the serpent's lost, but what about the statue? What about the image? After everything we saw and we've took, what are we now? Are we still the image of God? Or are we a ruined copy of a masterpiece destined to be blemished for the rest of our life? Guys, you know the setup for the answer for that. Jesus looks at every single one of us. Yeshua Hamashiach looks at every single one of us with the eyes of his father.

And he says, "Welcome home." That's always been the plan is the return. Oh, need to be born again? I got that. Boom. You need a new heart? I got that. Boom. The stone that's inside you, I can take that out. Boom. You need me to write the words on your heart for you? I got that. That's part of the new promise, renewed covenant that I'm making with you right now. Because in Yeshua, as I know we love to talk about going to heaven one day, but the truth is heaven comes the moment that you claim who your king is. Eternal life is definitely something that I believe takes place after you die, but I think it starts now.

And if we're living in eternal life now, then we're living in the realm of God and we're seeing the world with a whole new set of glasses. That's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. He says, "If you are in Christ," he doesn't say you are, he just says, "New creation." If you have proclaimed the son of peace as your king, new creation. Not polished back up, not repaired, new. You can proclaim Christ your king today. And this whole battle will never be yours to fight again. Not the one with the serpent winning. You can take up your mantle as an image of God and you can walk out of here. And you can begin practicing what it looks like to be a soldier of Christ.

You can be practicing what it looks like to live in a way that God's love comes forth from you. And you can practice every single day with great honor. Crushing the snake under your feet and sharing in the same victory that your king has already been victorious in. Amen. So, please stand with me as we conclude worship today. And during this time of worship, the Bible's neat. During this time of worship, I want to invite you to sing with us. But maybe you feel compelled to pray or meditate. I invite you to do that. We have a prayer partner on either side of the room, prayer warrior.

If you need prayer for anything going on in your life today, it could be related to the message or it could just be the life that we're all living that constantly needs prayer. As you can walk up to either one of these people, and they will they will they will they will go before the Father with you and lift you up. And we have this we call it an altar here. It's a symbolic altar stage. But the symbolism of it carries a lot of weight. In that, you can put something on it symbolically. It's for someone who may have been carrying something around a long time that they've forgotten just how heavy it is.

And maybe the Holy Spirit's speaking to you today and says, "You know what? Maybe you don't need to carry this thing around any longer." And so, if that's you today, you can walk up here and you can kneel down and you can symbolically put that on the altar and say, "God, I'm going to give this to you because I know that you can cleanse me. I know that I can be a new creation. I know that I'm a work in you. I know your spirit has the power to do this. And I know that when I rise back up, it's going to be the first step in a new type of journey, in a new type of chapter in a relationship with you."

That's what it's here for. And so, I invite you to worship with us during this time. Avinu Malkeinu, our Father and our King, Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come before you, to learn about your incredible word, but the story about you and us, and how we can share in that victory that only Yeshua, our King, can bring. Father, I ask that if there's anyone in here today that has struggled with the stomping and crushing of the snakes in their life, that you would remind them of the power that they were given and the vocation that they were given and the purpose they were given and the trust that you've given them knowing that they're capable to start that journey if they would just lean on you today. We thank you, Father, for your amazing word.