Victory

You thought this was going to be about Genesis 3, didn't you? Ha, then you read the title and thought "hmmm maybe she's just going out of order." But you were right! This IS about Genesis 3!

Hold up then! Genesis 3 is like the most depressing chapter in the entire Bible right? Even moreso than Lamentations!

Well, maybe you're right. I mean, God does say this:

"Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (v. 17-19)


Aaaand then there was this,


"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."


And stop, no more, you'll just upset me.


But wait a minute. There's one very interesting part in this chapter: a blessing instead of a curse, and that is verses 14-15. 
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 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."


Did you catch that? God predicts what's going to happen right off the bat. There's no hemming and hawing, no suspense, just a plain old prophecy about the defeat of the Serpent, and the adoption of us as God's children through this defeat. 


That's how it is with God. He just wins. He can't not win. Satan can finagle and whisper and a lot of times it seems like he's winning. But the only thing Satan has got going for him is clamorous insistence. God speaks in a still, small voice. I remember watching a movie, where the discussion of kings came up, and someone wanted to know why the kings of lesser importance always gave the biggest presents, and the kings of greater importance always gave the smaller gifts, if any at all. The reason? The kings of greater importance have no need to prove their importance through flashy, gaudy presents and clamorous insistence of their jurisdiction. They have their power; they need not prove it. Because for them, victory and kingship is just a given: an inevitable, immutable truth of their existence.


It seems to me that it is the same with God. Satan and the world's way is so flashy and gleaming, so clamorous and apparent. "All that is gold does not glitter." I suppose in this post the promise of victory is simply more of a given, unchangeable fact--because victory is always the Lord's. He promises it from the beginning.