Why the Serpent Still Eats Dust

Isaiah 65 opens with God reaching out to rebellious people and closes with a serpent still eating dust. Most folks read right past that. I want you to see how those two pictures fit together, because they tell us how God treats His people, why His promises can't fail, and what becomes of the enemy who brought sin into the garden.

God doesn't change His Word when circumstances change. What He said in the beginning is still standing at the end. Get hold of that, and you'll quit letting circumstances have the last word.

God Was Reaching for People Who Weren't Looking for Him

Here's how the chapter begins: "I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me."

Paul tells us who he had in mind. In Romans 10:20 and 21 he gives that verse to the Gentiles and the next verse to Israel. Israel had the Law, the prophets, and the covenants. The Gentiles had none of it. Yet when the gospel came, strangers believed and many of the covenant people turned away. All the while, God was holding out His hands to Israel.

Have you ever prayed as though God had to be talked into helping you? Plenty of people do. But Isaiah shows us a God who goes looking for people who aren't looking for Him. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't wait for us to clean up. He moved first, and faith simply receives what grace has already put on the table. You can't beg your way into it.

Why God Wouldn't Destroy the Cluster

Then God gives a picture that sounds strange at first. "Thus says the LORD, 'As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, "Do not destroy it, for there is benefit in it," so I will act on behalf of My servants in order not to destroy all of them.'"

Picture a man holding a cluster of grapes. He knows there's good wine in it, so he won't throw the whole thing away. That's how God said He would deal with Israel. The nation had rebelled and judgment was coming, but He had servants scattered through that mess, and He wasn't about to sweep them off with everybody else. Notice He never claims the whole cluster is good. The benefit inside is what saves it.

Elijah couldn't see that. He'd run into the wilderness, sat down under a juniper tree, and asked God to let him die. Later at Horeb he told the Lord that Israel had forsaken the covenant, torn down the altars, and killed the prophets, and that he alone was left. God told him there were seven thousand in Israel who had never bowed to Baal.

Paul pulls that same account into Romans 11 and says, "In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice." Do you see what that means? Israel's failure didn't cancel God's purpose. Even when the crowd walks away, and even when it looks like you're the only one left, He keeps the ones He chose, and He keeps them by His own faithfulness, not theirs.

God Answers Before His People Call

Here's a verse most of us have quoted without stopping to think: "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear."

We usually take that to mean God knows what we need ahead of time. That's true, but look where He puts it. Right before it, He announces new heavens and a new earth, Jerusalem rejoicing, and people building houses and planting vineyards and eating their own fruit. The future was already settled before anybody opened his mouth. Your prayer rises up inside something God has already started.

That's why Ephesians 1:3 matters so much: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." Jesus didn't wait for you to pray before He went to the cross. So find out what God has promised, because First John 5:14 says, "This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." Pray from there.

Now put that beside the opening of the chapter. God lets Himself be found by people who weren't seeking Him. He holds out His hands to people who resist Him. He answers before they ever call. Every time, God moves first.

Why the Serpent Still Eats Dust

The last verse of the chapter has a detail I'd bet you've never noticed. "The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent's food."

The wolf has quit hunting the lamb. The lion eats straw. Everything in creation has been changed except one thing. The serpent is still eating dust. Why would God leave that in a picture of restoration?

To answer that, you have to go all the way back to Eden. Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree God told them to leave alone. When God came asking, Adam pointed at the woman, and the woman pointed at the serpent. Then God turned to the serpent, and He didn't ask him one question. He simply pronounced the sentence: "On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life." And in the very next verse, He told the serpent that the woman's Seed would bruise his head.

Many centuries later, Isaiah describes God's restored creation, and that sentence is still standing. All through Scripture, dust means humiliation. Micah 7:17 says the nations will lick the dust like a serpent as they come trembling to the Lord. Psalm 72:9 says the king's enemies will lick the dust. So when Isaiah says the serpent eats dust, he's echoing Eden. The wolf and the lion get a new condition. As far as the text shows, the serpent gets no release from his sentence.

Revelation 20:10 shows the devil's final judgment. The one who deceived Eve doesn't get the last word. And Jesus said in Luke 10:19, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you." Put those two together. The serpent's sentence has him low in the dust, and Jesus puts you in the position to tread on him.

So quit talking as though the devil can overturn what God has spoken. He'll make noise, but he can't change the sentence God pronounced in Eden.

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