Revelation 20:7 KJV
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
When the thousand years are expired….
Those thousand years are speaking of the one thousand year reign of Christ. And we think of them (at least I always have) of happening in an instant. In my mind I go from the rapture and Tribulation to eternity with the kingdom only being a flash of thought. It has a purpose but I see Satan bound and then released as happening in only a moment's time.
And it is appropriate to think of it that way. It is the mind of the believer taking on the character of God who sees one day as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
But I was struck today with just how long a time it really is.
What has happened in the last one thousand years is almost incomprehensible to most of us. Our education has provided us with some concept of those events of the last one thousand years, but they were so long ago and so much different than our lives that it is almost like a fiction than a reality. Our own nation has only existed a little less that 250 years and even in that brief period of time (our presidents still only number in the forties) we have squabbles about historical accuracy. There is as much fiction as fact written today about great historical figures such as Franklin and Washington.
I say all of that to ask you to imagine a one thousand year reign of Christ.
• One thousand years with Satan bound
• One thousand years with Christ's literal presence
• One thousand years of sin restrained by the rod of the Lord
• One thousand years of perfect world peace
• One thousand years of peace with the animal world
• No one is mauled by a dog or bitten by a serpent
• No one is taken to the hospital sick from a bug bite
We may presume the likes of swine and Asian flu will not be known
But sin still exists. It is restrained with the rod and restricted because Satan is not there to tempt. But it still harbors in the hearts of men. And when those thousand years are expired Satan is loosed and has no difficulty assembling an army of those who have begrudged the rod of the Lord, to fight against God.
Our sin is a terrible evil and it is focused directly at the Lord. Would to God we would be sensible enough to declare war on the sin that dwells in our flesh before it declares war on the God who dwelt among us to save us.
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
When the thousand years are expired….
Those thousand years are speaking of the one thousand year reign of Christ. And we think of them (at least I always have) of happening in an instant. In my mind I go from the rapture and Tribulation to eternity with the kingdom only being a flash of thought. It has a purpose but I see Satan bound and then released as happening in only a moment's time.
And it is appropriate to think of it that way. It is the mind of the believer taking on the character of God who sees one day as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
But I was struck today with just how long a time it really is.
What has happened in the last one thousand years is almost incomprehensible to most of us. Our education has provided us with some concept of those events of the last one thousand years, but they were so long ago and so much different than our lives that it is almost like a fiction than a reality. Our own nation has only existed a little less that 250 years and even in that brief period of time (our presidents still only number in the forties) we have squabbles about historical accuracy. There is as much fiction as fact written today about great historical figures such as Franklin and Washington.
I say all of that to ask you to imagine a one thousand year reign of Christ.
• One thousand years with Satan bound
• One thousand years with Christ's literal presence
• One thousand years of sin restrained by the rod of the Lord
• One thousand years of perfect world peace
• One thousand years of peace with the animal world
• No one is mauled by a dog or bitten by a serpent
• No one is taken to the hospital sick from a bug bite
We may presume the likes of swine and Asian flu will not be known
But sin still exists. It is restrained with the rod and restricted because Satan is not there to tempt. But it still harbors in the hearts of men. And when those thousand years are expired Satan is loosed and has no difficulty assembling an army of those who have begrudged the rod of the Lord, to fight against God.
Our sin is a terrible evil and it is focused directly at the Lord. Would to God we would be sensible enough to declare war on the sin that dwells in our flesh before it declares war on the God who dwelt among us to save us.
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