Crush the Serpent
Lord's Day Exhortation
In His death and resurrection, our Lord dealt the final blow to the head of the Serpent, that awful antagonizer of man.
For on the cross, Christ forgave our trespasses, our guilt piercing His hands. And in His resurrection, He disarmed principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them in triumph (Col. 2:13–15).
This was in fulfillment of what is called the “protoevangelium” or “first gospel” found in Genesis 3:15, in which God curses the serpent, declaring, “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.” As the Apostle John wrote, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8b).
After His resurrection, Jesus then commissioned His Church to go throughout the earth, proclaiming His victory to every creature and nation. Satan had once offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world as a reward for His allegiance, but Christ refused, and having crushed and bound Satan, He instead received the nations as His rightful inheritance from His Father in heaven (Lk. 3:5–9, Rev. 20:1–3, Ps. 2:8). And now as the Church walks by the Spirit under Christ’s authority, we also have the privilege to crush Satan under our feet (Rom. 16:20, Rev. 12:11).
But what does it mean for us to crush this Serpent?
We crush the Serpent every time we worship the Lord, confess our sins, take up our crosses, walk by the Spirit, read Scripture, pray for those in need, love our wives, respect our husbands, honor our parents, instruct our children, work with our hands, practice hospitality, evangelize our neighbors, support missionaries, and love our enemies.
All these things Satan hates, and the Lord absolutely delights in them. So may the God of peace soon crush Satan under your feet.
Prayer of Confession:
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting (Ps. 139:23–25).
Merciful Father,
We humbly confess before You now our many sins which we have committed against You in thought, word, and deed. We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep, following the sinful desires of our own hearts. But You have called us back to Yourself, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Great Shepherd.
In particular, we confess the ways in which we have grown cold and lost our first love. We confess our backsliding, our complacency, and our unwillingness to destroy the works of the devil in our hearts and lives. Forgive us of this sin, and grant us Your Spirit, that we would have abundant life in Christ and see His kingdom advance.
Lord, we also recognize that our nation has turned from Christ and embraced the Serpent by the many sins that we practice and celebrate. And so we ask that You would have mercy on us. May Your gospel go forth through the work of Your church, and may Satan be crushed under the feet of Your saints in this land.
We know that if we regard any iniquity in our hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual. And so we silently confess our individual sins to you now. Selah.
This exhortation was given on March 22, AD 2026, at King’s Cross Church in Moscow, Idaho.