Before we jump to the the release of Satan that God coordinated I want to jump back to a word from Solomon. The verse below is a perfect header for this lesson.
4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—even the wicked for a day of disaster. (Proverbs 16:4–NIV)
In Revelation 20:7-10 God works out Satan, his followers and God’s to a fitting finality. Those who would not have the offer of Christ are sent the master deceiver who gathers them to their own end. Those who have accepted the offer of Christ will have to exercise faith, big faith, one more time. With that let us branch over and see Satan max-out of jail.
7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison (Revelation 20:7–ESV)
A thousand years is hard for my mind to imagine. What about being locked up for all those years? Well, I am created like the angels and demons, but God set me (you, too) up as more than just spirit. I have a body and one which will probably run a good bit less than 1/10th of Satan’s sentence1. Angels and demons? Well they have no molecules, no matter. That’s another way of saying they have no bodies. They probably don’t even exist in a timed framework like we do. God said that with him a thousand years is like a day and a day like a thousand years2.
The clock and the devil’s experience of it is easily a rabbit trail, though. Rabbit trails threaten misdirection from bigger issues, so let’s let that rabbit run off into the woods and stay on bigger things. The bigger thing here is that by design the time of Christ’s rule over the fallen world from Jerusalem is not eternal. Similarly, Satan’s sentence in jail was also time limited as we saw hinted at two lessons ago. (Link to the lesson. Link to the scripture: Revelation 20:1-3) [Read more…] about Revelation 20:7-10>> The coordinated countdown.