We are having some fun in this series as we look at the major, foundational pieces of the God story, through four animals.  

THE SNAKE: We learned there are two realities, a visible reality and an invisible reality. There is what we see, touch, feel and experience. But there is also what we are not as aware of. There are spiritual battles taking place all around us, at all times. 

Ephesians 6:12  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death.

Exodus 2:23–25  . . . The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning . . .

Exodus 11:4–8  So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says . . . Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.  But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.’ 

God is more disturbed by our sin than we are, and this should be alarming to us.

“In all these faith communities, where forgiveness is easy, and love is easy, there is not enough blood on the floor to make sense of that.”

---Brene Brown

Someone always eats the cost of sin.

God provides perfect protection

Exodus 12:21–23 “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway . . .”

John 1:29 “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Hebrews 10:1–3 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. . .

Hebrews 10:10 . . . we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 

Those standing under the shelter of the blood of the lamb.

Those who are not standing under the shelter of the blood of the lamb.

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.