Defeat is the Beginning...

In the Bible, there are a lot of stories of people who God came through for, right at the very last minute.

And yet, all those people who God did come through for – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; Mary and Martha; Abraham and Isaac; Jesus Himself – they didn’t actually know that God was going to come through for them. Basically, they said, “My God is big enough that He is able to. And it would be nice if He would. But even if not, that’s okay, because we will still trust Him.”

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.’”

Daniel 3:16-18, NKJV (emphasis added)

And they went into that fire anyway, and they didn’t think that they would come out. Lazarus died, and those sisters knew their brother would not rise until the last day. Abraham tied up his son, put him on the altar, even raised the knife, and didn’t see any substitute. (If I were Abraham, and if I realized that the substitute was a symbol of Christ being our substitute, I would have been worrying for a lot more reasons than one at that point – now, not only was it my son’s temporary life, but also my salvation – and everyone else’s – and the salvation of the entire race of humankind that was on the line!)

And Jesus. He literally had to feel eternal death along with the weight of the sins of the world, without God even there to comfort and strengthen Him.

We know how those stories end. But we forget, reading them now, that none of those people actually knew how the story would end.

And yet, to paraphrase Corrie ten Boom, if the Bible is the pattern of how God works, then defeat is only the beginning…

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

John 12:24, NKJV

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’”

John 11:25-26, NKJV