The devil has to bite the dust time and again in the history of Creation. John has seen that divine principle in the Heavenly ‘sign’. Perhaps Satan did already bite the dust between Genesis 1 verses 1 and 2 when he was cast out of Heaven onto the earth, which therefore became formless and void. He has to bite the dust again when the Lord pronounces judgment on the ‘nachash’: “You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”1 Serpents do not eat dust—worms do. But the ‘nachash’ becomes a wriggling snake—despicable, cast down to earth, clinging to the ground with its belly. We still say ‘biting the dust’. While the Lord speaks with Adam and Eve, giving them the opportunity to defend or explain themselves, the ‘nachash’ is given no such opportunity. The Lord knows him well; He knows of his fall and the judgment upon him in Heaven so He pronounces the judgment on him on earth immediately. “We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground,”2 the Psalmist says with deep humility. Eating, licking dust expresses total dismay and subjection: “May the tribes of the desert bow before him and his enemies lick the dust,”3 a Psalm of Solomon says. When the King reigns the enemies bow down in the dust, have to bite the dust. And the King is reigning! A loud voice calls out: “Now the salvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come.” His salvation! His might! His power! His Kingship! It is the voice of a redeemed child of the human race, for he speaks of his ‘brothers’ who are being accused by the devil before God day and night, like Job.4 The devil bites the dust. Jesus sees him falling from Heaven—for the umpteenth time—when the disciples go out in the power of the Kingdom of God.5 They are the seventy (or seventy-two) in this case, who go out two by two and come back with enthusiasm saying that even the evil spirits submit to them.6 The Gospel of the Kingdom is spreading victoriously throughout the world. The ‘powers of darkness’ have to retreat. Signs of the Kingdom are now already visible ‘locally’7 following the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom, with the accompanying ‘signs and wonders’. Jesus had promised His disciples that they would be doing even greater works that He had done. John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” These ‘signs’ will become daily reality in the Kingdom to come. It will shortly be the case definitively and completely, worldwide, Universe-wide.
The Kingship is proclaimed under the seventh trumpet. The Heavenly ‘sign of the woman, the Child and the dragon’ shows how God acts. The devil is cast down on earth, showing that he is the motor behind the great tribulation and the beasts, behind ‘Babylon’ and the ‘whore’. The victory is sure, but the world still has to pass through an intensely dark, demonic phase.
• The word ‘Satan’ is also used for human adversaries, as the Philistines say to Achish about David,8 or Solomon’s adversaries, Rezon9 and Hadad10 the Edomite (a descendant of Esau). The Angel of the Lord who opposes Balaam is also called ‘adversary’!11 ‘Your enemy the devil’, Peter says.12
• It is just because the Kingship is now proclaimed in Heaven and Jesus is quickly coming again soon, that the devil is ranting and raging so furiously in our world and in our personal lives.
Bible References:
1.Genesis 3:14 2.Psalm 44:25 3.Psalm 72:9 4.Job 1:6–2:8 5.Luke 10:18 6.Luke 10:17–20 7.John 2:11 and 23, 3:2, 4:54, 10:41; 14:12; Mark 16:17–20 8.1 Samuel 29:4 9.1 Kings 11:23 10.1 Kings 11:14 11.Numbers 22:22 12.1 Peter 5:8
