In Gen. 3:14, 15, we see the commencement on God's part, of His purpose to carry on a conflict with the serpent, and the firm purpose expressed, that Satan should be worsted. Satan had got this man and woman down, God comes and takes the matter up against Satan, "Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed-the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head." That was the beginning of the conflict which has not ceased up to the present time: No one can escape it. Believers are to be delivered by the Seed of the woman, but cannot get out of conflict as long as they are down here.
The serpent's head shall be bruised: that is a truth which stands, and acts on my soul, giving strength. Suppose a man in a scene with ''Satan on the one hand and the Seed of the woman on the other. If anyone said to him, " Call on the name of the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved,", it might give him joy; but his position would be just the same, he would still be on the ground of conflict. I want not only the consciousness that I am saved, but that I am to get deliverance from this evil world, because God is on my side where the conflict is going on. Can you not take delight in the good news that the earth is to be delivered from Satan, the liar and murderer? Do you find no joy in God's having declared that He will overpower that wicked one? It is good news, I can rejoice and see beauty in the thought of God destroying the destroyer. I see the glory of Christ in it. I see a beauty in the thought of there being no spring of power against Satan, save in God, and that I can calculate upon God's coming in Satan did not.
What discoveries were made to the early Christians of the depth; the immeasurable, unfathomable, depths of evil within! What can give any heart Simple rest, in such an experience? Nothing, but the thought of God's taking up the evil in conflict with Satan, declaring that He would provide One to bruise his head. If T. have got firm hold of that, whatever be the discovery of evil I make in myself, I shall not be daunted. I find such depths of evil, all sorts of evil, in my heart, that I cannot fathom it. It requires the power of Jehovah Himself to sound and measure it. I must have been daunted, had He not put forth that word. I can have rest from all that the power of darkness, can do, because the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Who is the Seed of the woman? Only One, born of a virgin-only One, the Son in the bosom of the Father before He was the seed of the woman.
It is a very solemn thing to feel that one is in the place where this conflict is, going on between God and Satan; and one cannot get off the scene of conflict, but how blessed is the knowledge that God is for us in it!