Theological term
Enmity
3 sermons · All terms
Hebrews 13:3
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not merely to recall that persecuted saints exist, but to remember them with a view to action, prayer, and tangible aid. This study traces the command through its immediate context of brotherly love (Hebrews 13:1-3), the Old and New Testament witness to the normalcy of suffering for the cause of Christ, and the reasons why remembering persecuted believers is both a duty and an expression of the church's solidarity in one body. The practical application presses the congregation to move beyond apathy toward the persecuted church through prayer, correspondence, giving, visitation, and the conscious redirecting of attention away from self toward those who suffer for the name of Christ.
The Promise of a Redeemer
Genesis 3:15, the proto-evangelium, is the first gospel promise in Scripture — the divine announcement that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. This sermon traces the background of the fall, the covenantal framework of Genesis 2–3, and three observations from the text: the Deliverer would be a man, he would accomplish redemption through suffering, and he would achieve total victory over sin, death, and the devil. The sermon is preached as a preparation for the Lord's Supper, calling believers to receive the bread and cup as those who have been redeemed by Christ's decisive defeat of Satan at Calvary.
The Adamic Covenant
Genesis 3:14–24 records the first historical expression of the covenant of grace — what covenant theologians call the Adamic covenant. This sermon works through the fall of Adam and Eve, the immediate context of that catastrophe, and then the divine initiative by which God addresses the serpent, the woman, and the man with both curse and promise. The protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 stands at the centre: God sovereignly places enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, pointing forward to the One who would crush the serpent's head through suffering at Calvary. The sermon calls hearers to see themselves either in the first Adam under condemnation, or in the second Adam under grace, and to trust the covenant-keeping God who seeks out sinners and covers them with what they cannot provide for themselves.