You may already know that God issued a curse following Adam and Eve’s choice to sin (Genesis 3).
The Curse of Sin
He cursed the serpent for deceiving them.
He also pronounced that from that point on, women would experience pain in childbirth because of Eve.
And He cursed the ground because of Adam.
Men would have to labor hard for the sustenance of life, and women would have to labor harder for its initiation.
But the curse of sin is even more far-reaching than these areas, isn’t it?
Disease.
Decay.
Rampant evil.
Some of us seem to experience the effects of sin’s curse more intensely than others.
In the Old Testament, we read about a king whose evil deeds garnered a curse for himself and for all the generations after him.
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months…He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done. (2 Kings 24:8-9)
“As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. I will deliver you into the hands of those who want to kill you, those you fear—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Babylonians. I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. You will never come back to the land you long to return to.”
Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot,
an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out,
cast into a land they do not know?
O land, land, land,
hear the word of the Lord!
This is what the Lord says:
“Record this man as if childless,
a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.
(Jeremiah 22:24-30)
An evil king.
A holy God.
A sobering curse.
One not just affecting a single man.
It would affect many generations to come.
Boys in that family would no longer look forward to their coronation day.
This man’s sin ruined it for them all.
Until…
the curse was broken.
Because you see, one day more than a dozen generations after Jehoiachin (whom Scripture also refers to as Jeconiah or Coniah), a man claimed a Baby as his legal firstborn son, though the Baby was no blood relation to him at all.
This Baby was the Son of God.
Yet the virgin birth of Joseph’s legal Son ensured that this One would have the legal right to rule as King…
without being subject to the curse placed on Jehoiachin’s descendants so many years prior.
Oh, the grace of our curse-breaking God!
His ways are perfect.
And they far surpass anything we could ever concoct or fathom.
“He comes to make His blessings known
Far as the curse is found.”
We won’t fully escape sin’s curse until we reach heaven.
But the birth of a Baby two thousand years ago means there is hope for you and for me today and every day.
The hope that comes from belonging to a curse-breaking God who has guaranteed victory for those who claim Him as their own.
And as if that wasn’t enough and so much more than we deserve, He also grants the hope that comes from God with us becoming God in us and promising to never leave us nor forsake us in the meantime.
Are you experiencing the effects of sin’s curse, friend?
Sickness?
Loss?
Addiction?
Jesus came so that we could be blessed by His power over the curse…
and blessed by His presence in spite of it.
Hallelujah!