All he’s thought about for 1,000 years is how he’s going to get back at Jesus Christ. So, his first order of business when he hears his prison door unlock and the chain rattles loose is to get back into business.
Satan’s Last Attack (v7-9)
Our first point is titled “Satan’s Last Attack.” Notice verses 7-9.
After 1,000 of misery in the Abyss Satan is released. He’s not beaten and bruised – he’s fuming. His rage is at its apogee. All he’s thought about for 1,000 years is how he’s going to get back at Jesus Christ. So, his first order of business when he hears the door unlocked and creak open and light shines into his dark prison, is to get back into business. Like a criminal released and anxious to get back into his criminal enterprise, Satan wastes no time getting back to his work. What work is that? Well it’s the same work he’s been at since the beginning: trying to overthrow God and the Lamb. How is he going to do it? The same way he always has – the only way he knows how: using deception to lure the nations into joining him against God. This time its his final stand. This time all the chips are in. He’s giving it all he’s got.
Now, several questions come to mind. Who are all these people around the world that Satan is going to deceive? How on earth could they be deceived and follow him after 1,000 years of seeing Jesus on the earth? And also, even though we explored it a little, we have to ask again, why is he given an encore? Why is he imprisoned for 1,000 years only to be let out again at the end? Why not just send him to the Lake of Fire at the beginning of the 1,000 year kingdom and be done with it? Let’s take those questions in order.
First, Who are all these people who are deceived and follow Satan? How could they do that after seeing and hearing Jesus for 1,000 years? Short answer: It is all the descendents of the Tribulation survivors who entered the Kingdom at the beginning of the 1,000 years.
To comprehend what happens at the end of the 1,000 year kingdom we have to look at what happens back in the beginning of that kingdom. Remember there will be survivors of the Tribulation who will face Jesus for judgment. In Matthew 25 Jesus says he will have the nations gather before Him and He will separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep – those who belong to Him and are saved – are told to go and enter the kingdom – the 1,000 year kingdom. The goats he says go straight to the Lake of Fire.
Now, and this is key, the survivors who will enter the Kingdom will not have their resurrected, glorified bodies. They will enter with their natural bodies, bodies like we all have right now. Why does that matter? Because they will be able to reproduce. They will be able to have children, and the human race will continue to increase in number during the Millennial Kingdom because of these people. Think about this: the glorified and resurrected Church believers, the resurrected OT saints, the resurrected Tribulation martyrs will all have new, glorified bodies. According to Jesus this means they will not be able to reproduce. No procreation will be happening by anyone who has their eternal, glorified, resurrected bodies.
Now here is why this is important – here is how we answer the question we’re asking: who are all these people that will abandon Jesus and follow Satan at the end of the Kingdom? Remember the natural body is infected with the sin nature and that sin nature is passed on from each generation to the next, ever since Adam. These survivors in their natural bodies, still having their sin natures, will have children and their children will also have the sin nature. This means that during the Kingdom there will be two kinds of human beings: those who are glorified and those who are not. Those who are in their resurrected bodies and without the sin nature, and those who still live in their fallen bodies with the sin nature. These two humans will live side by side together for the whole 1,000 years.
This might sound strange, but, you have to remember there have always been “two” types of humans. There were the Israelites and the Gentiles throughout the OT. Now there are Christians and non-Christians. During the Tribulation there will be those who take the mark of the beast and those who refuse. In the Millennial Kingdom there will be those with resurrected, glorified bodies and those with natural, unglorified bodies. If you remember Jesus came in His resurrected body to eat with the disciples, to be touched in His scars by them, to walk and talk with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and appear to over 500 of the disciples. Jesus’ activity after His resurrection demonstrates the intermingling of glorified and non-glorified humans. So it will be in the Kingdom.
It will be a new economy, a new dispensation, a new epoch, a new era upon the earth. Just like previous eras came and went so too this era will come, and end, and thus make way for the eternal state to begin. In the past, we saw before the Church Age which we’re living in now was the age of Law – the Law of Moses, or, the OT scheme of things. Before the Law was the patriarchs: Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, and before them leading back to right after the Fall. Then before that age was the short era of innocence in the Garden where creation was fresh and new and no sin was in the world.
Well, God, in His wisdom and sovereignty is directing History through all these various stages and leading ultimately to the final, permanent state of perfection we refer to as the eternal state, described in the last two chapters of Revelation.
But why? Why go through all these epochs? Why not just end today and start the Eternal Perfection now? Or, why not start it earlier, like, right after the Garden? Because God is working out His plans dispensationally. We are dispensationalists at EFC. What does that mean?
“Each dispensation includes requirements for human conduct…dispensationalism is a form of stewardship or responsibility of humanity to obey God and to honor Him. Each dispensation recorded in the Bible ends in failure, thus proving that no one under any arrangement can achieve perfection or salvation. Even in the millennial kingdom, with its near-perfect circumstances, humanity will still fail. In every dispensation salvation is by grace through faith, made possible by the death of Christ. On the one hand the dispensations have diversity of requirements for human conduct, but on the other hand salvation is always by God’s grace. Salvation is the unifying factor in Scripture.” (http://walvoord.com/article/151)
God is showing in each different dispensation that man will rebel against God, that man cannot save himself, and that salvation must be by God’s grace. “Will man obey me when he has direct fellowship with Me, personally heard me give him My command, and when he has no impulse to rebel? Adam failed that situation by following Satan’s lie. “Will man obey me when he has a sinful impulse to rebel against Me and while he doesn’t have constant visual fellowship with me anymore he does have my commands passed down to him from his fathers? Well, we saw man was filled with sin and filled the world with bloodshed and grieved God so much He said He regretted making man and thus he responded to man’s overwhelming wickedness by wiping him out with a worldwide flood – save Noah.
Well, what about a new arrangement: “What if I explicitly give in writing a code of law that will regulate civil and religious life in a nation of my choosing (Israel) showing My holiness and binding that nation to Me in a holy and unique way from all other nations? Will they obey Me when I give them such an honor?” Well, we see in the OT the disobedience of the Israelites played out in the face of such revelation from God to them.
“Well, so man fails in obeying the Law, let’s see how man does when instead He is called on to simply believe that I sent My Son to die on the cross for the sins of the world. Let’s see if man believes that and if he will follow Me when all he has is the promise of a future paradise I describe ahead of time for him. This is the age we are in now.
The Kingdom is going to test the human population on the earth who has not been resurrected. Their test will be this: Will you accept with your heart the King whom you see with your own eyes and follow Him with all your heart, soul, strength and mind? Will He be yours and will you be His? That is not a test we have right now because we live by faith, not by sight.
You might be thinking, “But man if they are going to see Him surely no one would rebel against Him in all His awesomeness!” Wrong! Do not forget the power of the sinful nature within man to lead that man to rebellion. Do not forget the cunning and seduction of the King of Liars, Satan, to exploit that sinful impulse to rebel against God within man. Do not forget that seeing is NOT believing. Remember they saw Jesus and all His miracles at His first coming and it only enraged them and made them more determined to kill Him. No one will rebel against Jesus during the Millennial Kingdom because He will rule them with an iron scepter. The socio-political environment will be in favor of righteousness and worship of Jesus Christ. But He will know what lies within the hearts all those un-resurrected humans who give outward honor to Him while harboring rebellion in their hearts. So, when the dragon is uncaged at the end, by his supernatural ability he will form the international rebellion against Christ among men. Man by himself cannot organize and mobilize such a revolt against the King of Kings. Satan will capitalize on the inward hatred for Christ that many will have – hatred they keep inward even while outwardly obeying Him because of His iron scepter. Satan will tap into that, exploit it, and use it to organize his final army.
The End of Evil (9b – 10)
Finally, we come to the end of evil. Notice verses 9b and 10, “…
I say the end of evil because with this attack at the end of the 1,000 year kingdom is the very last act of evil that will ever be perpetrated. From that point on there will never be another murder, theft, rape, lie, idolatry,
Remember that for the duration of this 1,000 year kingdom the Lake of Fire has been populated by the Antichrist, the False Prophet, and the Goats (Mth. 25). The Goats would include all the wicked kings who joined with Antichrist. They are all in there for 1,000 years before Satan finally joins them. I remember a passage in Isaiah 14:9-17 that describes the final destiny of Satan. [Read]. What always confused me was the fact that other kings were down there waiting for him when he arrived.
This final un-resting place, the Lake of Fire, is a horrible place of pain and anguish. Jesus called it a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of utter darkness, a place where the worm of the dead there never dies out. It is a place where Satan will wither and decay and die forever but never get any rest from his pain, his torment, his agony, his suffering. He will live with the rage, the hatred, the acute awareness that he failed and the Most High God has thrown him down and down he will stay forever.
CONCLUSION: Where will you be when Satan is in the Lake of Fire?
There are only two places: with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory, or, with Satan in contempt and torment? Those who choose the way of Satan, to rebel against the Lamb, to reject the Lamb and to disbelieve the Gospel will suffer the fate of the Devil in the Lake of Fire. But those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ, who believe on Him for everlasting life, they will live with Him in glory for ever and ever.