How's Your Faith Holding Up?
The First Christmas Prophecy
Genesis 3:14-15
"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because have you done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life"
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
Did you see it?
This fortune for the Devil wasn't just referring to the life and times of reptiles. This judgment was a prediction that Satan understood perfectly. And he and his seed (the demons) had spent hundreds of generations of mankind trying to destroy the ancestors of Mary because they knew that her child would destroy them.
And ever since the advent of Christ he's tried to destroy the one and only thing he knows mankind needs to find friendship with God.
Faith.
What is faith? How do we get it?
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
(Hebrews 11:1)
"For we live by faith, not by sight"
(2 Corinthians 5:7)
Is it any surprise that the Devil has always leaned hard on sowing doubt and suspicion surrounding God's word and commands? He knows how to turn believers into pagans (people with no religion and every religion, people worshiping natural things and themselves). Satan gets them to question Gods word and authority. He started doing this from the very beginning. He establishes resentment in the hearts and minds of the people towards Mary's son.
"So faith is from hearing, and hearing through the word of God."
(Romans 10:17)
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9).
"His mother bore him in her womb; let us bear him in our hearts. The virgin was big with the incarnation of Christ; let our bosoms grow big with the faith of Christ. She gave birth to the Savior; let us give birth to praise."
- Saint Augustine of Hippo, “Sermon 189” (c. 400)