“Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time'” (Revelation 12:10-12).
So having lost access to the heavenly realm, the enemy was forcibly removed to the only theater of operation left to him: the earth. Much like a cornered, wounded animal, this passage tells us, “The devil has come down to you with great rage, for he knows that he only has a short time” (CEB). Unfortunately, that type of animal is often the most dangerous, as we’ll see…
“Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.
So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:13-17).
Most of us have likely seen or encountered someone whose anger was so intense that they unleashed their rage upon others. That experience serves to illustrate the dragon’s wrath toward the woman who had given birth to the male child mentioned earlier in verse five. The instrument of his fury is a great flood that threatened to sweep her away.
It’s unclear if this passage refers to a literal flood, or a flood in the sense of a town that is “flooded” by a massive influx of people. But what is certain is that God will execute a supernatural rescue: “But the earth came to the woman’s rescue, opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon had emitted from his mouth” (Revelation 12:16 Phillips).