REVELATION 20:1-3
Read Revelation 20:1-3.
This chapter introduces a lot of activity in a relatively short passage. The bounding of Satan on earth, a thousand years of Christ’s ruling kingdom followed by the release of Satan, the final war of the worlds in the battle of Gog and Magog, the final judgment of Satan, the resurrection of the wicked and their final judgment into the lake of fire.
After all of this, I have always wondered, “why?” Why this 1,000 years of Christ’s kingdom (a.k.a. the Millennium)? Why couldn’t God simply have ended everything at the battle of Armageddon in chapter 16 rather than wait another 1,000 years, lock up Satan, and then endure another terrible battle? The way God works is often a mystery. Of course, He has His reasons, and I may not ever know them. But still, I wonder…
As I pondered an answer to this question, I noticed something in the millennial years. These 1,000 years of Christ’s rule will be a time when Satan’s influence and deception will be absent. He’ll be bound “to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore” (v. 3). But I noticed that when He is released after the thousand years, there will be a great army gathered from around the world to battle against Christ and His army. Where did Satan get this army? Where did these evil people come from? The answer is that during the 1,000 years, the world will be filled with mortals who will still have the freewill to choose for themselves Christ’s kingdom rule or someone else’s. The earth will continue to have nations opposed to God. The earth will still be inhabited by people opposed to God. I noticed that back in chapter 19, only the beast and the false prophet (the Antichrist and his right hand man) were cast into the lake of fire (19:20-21). The rest of the inhabitants of the earth were either killed (armies of the Antichrist) or left to live. What I gather from all of this is that there will be a time in man’s history when the influence of Satan will be completely removed from man’s presence. The Antichrist will be gone. Satan will be removed. The only thing remaining will be man in his fallenness. And what I see is that man all by himself will still choose to follow his own ways. “The devil made me do it” will no longer be an excuse. Man will fall on his own accord. If anything, this period of 1,000 years will reveal the true power of sin in man. Even apart from Satan’s influence, man is incredibly wicked and self-serving. Mankind does not need an evil influence to bring his downfall. His fallen, sinful nature is enough.
In this day and age when people want to blame society or evil influences on their poor decisions and bad behavior, our passage reveals just how responsible and how bad we are all by ourselves. When God’s final judgment comes, there will be no one to blame but ourselves. It is for that reason, Christ died for us. His righteousness is ours when we come to put our faith and trust in Him… because obviously, we could not do it on our own.
Give thanks to God today for His great grace to make us and give us what we could not become nor gain apart from Christ. We are indeed such wretched creatures without Christ. Praise God for his amazing grace!
