GOLDEN GATE JUMPER
Bible Study / Daily Devotional
Daily Devotions
Average reading time is about 5 and a half minutes
AN AMAZING FACT: Have you ever heard your parents say, “If your friends told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?” Apparently some do. On March 11, 2011, a California high school student visiting the Golden Gate Bridge on a morning field trip climbed over a railing and jumped. He was evidently urged on by a dare from fellow classmates. Miraculously the teenager survived the 220-foot plunge into San Francisco Bay that kills dozens of people each year. Landing on water after a 220-foot fall feels like landing on concrete after a 100-foot drop.


Most jumpers die a grisly death with massive internal injuries, broken bones, and skull fractures. Some die from internal bleeding, while others drown in the cold water. But amazingly the 17-year-old lived. A statement from his school said he suffered no severe injuries beyond bruising and tenderness. He was rescued by a surfer who paddled over and towed him ashore.

California Highway Patrol Officer Chris Rardin said, “It’s a miracle in itself. The majority of folks do not survive this type of fall.” Windsor Unified School District Superintendent Bill McDermott said he didn’t think the teen was trying to commit suicide, but instead jumped after other students from the high school in Sonoma County dared him. Suddenly his shocked classmates saw the teen go over the railing.

Someone leaps off the iconic bridge an average of once every two weeks. In 2010, 32 jumpers died, most of those deaths suicides. About 98 percent of those plunges end up being fatal. The other 2 percent are seriously injured.

Did you know the Bible says the devil once dared the Savior to jump from a high precipice, but Jesus did not fall for the temptation? “Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over you,” and, “In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is written again, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”’” (Matthew 4:5-7).

Don’t ever fall for the taunting of the devil.
KEY BIBLE TEXTS
Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. Deuteronomy 6:16

WHO IS THE WOMAN’S SEED BRUISING THE SERPENT’S HEAD?
Bible Study / Daily Devotional
Daily Devotions
Average reading time is about 4 and a half minutes

The Lord gave this prophecy to Eve, who is a symbol of the church, saying that “her Seed”—her descendant, Jesus, and His followers—would bruise the head of the serpent, but the serpent would bruise His heel.

The quickest way to kill a serpent is to smash its head. And the word “bruise” there actually means to “smash” the head of the serpent. When a person is bruised on the heel, their progress is merely impeded. The devil has successfully hindered the progress of the Christian church, but it has not been a mortal wound. It has not stopped the church’s motion. I believe God was making a prophecy about a battle that would rage in our world between the serpent (the devil) and the woman (the church) from the day of mankind’s fall in the garden until Jesus returns.

In Revelation 12 you’ll find a dragon (also called a serpent in verse 9) trying to devour a woman’s baby as soon as the child is born (verse 4). This is the same serpent, Satan, who is called “the accuser of our brethren” (v. 10) and who persecutes “the woman who gave birth to the male Child” (v. 13). Although Satan has been allowed to wound the heel of the woman, the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 adds that the woman and her Seed—or offspring, who is Christ—would crush the serpent’s head. At the cross, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent, the devil.

When you kill a snake, it can still thrash around after its head has been crushed. It can even still bite for a time also. The devil was crushed at the cross, but he’s still thrashing around, snapping his jaws, and squirting venom. Not until our Lord returns will the church be fully freed from the torment of this defeated foe.
KEY BIBLE TEXTS
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15