What things will happen in this final phase before the end comes? In the coming days we will turn to Revelation 20 and we shall see just how the final resurrection of all the remaining dead will be related to the other parts of God’s plan for the consummation of Christ’s millennial reign.
John describes Satan’s last attempt to oppose the authority of God and of Christ and to stir up rebellion against it. This occurs at the end of the millennium.
“Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Rev. 20:7-10)
John uses the phrases “the camp of the saints” and “the beloved city” to describe the city of Jerusalem and the territory surrounding that. During the millennium Jerusalem will be the earthly centre of Christ’s administration and rule over the nations of the earth.
During this period Satan will be kept confined as a prisoner in the bottomless pit, but at its close he will be allowed to go free just long enough to stir up this final rebellion among the Gentile nations, which will culminate in an attempt to attack Jerusalem.
God will intervene, however, with fire from heaven. The rebellion will be totally defeated. And Satan himself will be cast into the lake of eternal fire, there to be tormented forever together with the beast (the Antichrist) and the false prophet. Both of these will already have been cast into the lake of fire at the time of Christ’s return to earth and of the commencement of the millennium.
Lord, what a blessing it is that we may already be under Your rule and Your government, in our personal lives. How blessed I feel that already Your unspeakable peace reigns in my heart, my life, and also in my body - whether I experience it or not...! Amen.
