Finale Revelation and Imagination Daily Devotional- 47
by David Joynt on July 22, 2021
Stress Test Devotional May 4
May 04, 2024
REVELATION 20:1-3, 7-10 | 1Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.
7 When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. 9 They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10 And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Having portrayed the end of earthly resistance to God and goodness in Chapter 19, John sees evil itself, evil personified, come to an end in Chapter 20. An angel binds Satan and chains him, throwing him into a bottomless pit. In one verse, the Evil One has four names, Dragon, Serpent, Devil, and Satan. He is a deceiver of nations and a liar.
The New Testament presents a super human presence personally opposed to God, as a terrible part of the answer to the mystery of iniquity. This is true to both history and individual experience. We encounter something more than just individual bad choices in life. We see countries enthralled by false ideologies, we examine the sad accounts of war and violence, and we feel ourselves in the grip of vices or viewpoints that we try vainly to resist. Yet Satan is bound, restrained for 100 years, only to be released and permanently destroyed. John wants to assure his readers that rebellion in every realm will eventually be quelled and eliminated.
Have you encountered evil in a form greater than “bad choices and mistakes”?
Do you believe evil will finally be defeated?
