Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. vv.1-3
Read chapter 20
Here we see an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit or abyss is the great prison where fallen heavenly being are kept as Peter mentions as tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4, "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartarus] and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment." Tartarus is not the same as hades or the lake of fire that we discussed in chapter 19, no humans do we ever read of there. We read of Satan finally getting locked up in tartarus (much deserved) for 1,000 years. We see many different names for Satan here: dragon, serpent of old, Devil and Satan. This is so that he can deceive the nations no more. Yet he will get let out again after this time. What! Why? No way? But this is only for a "little while." This little season is between this 1,000 years and the New Heavens and the New Earth that will see begin in the next chapter twenty-one, yet hard to know exactly how long.
This 1,000 years starts at Christ's parousia, His personal presence on earth, where those that were martyred for Christ in the tribulation will be resurrected and there is perfect peace, no rebellion, with all those allowed by Christ to live with Him. Yet after the 1,000 years there's one last chance to see if Satan can deceive followers after Christ. Let us hope that after living perfectly with Christ for that long long period that we could never be deceived by the smallest hint of Satan. It's easy for believers today who may have been Christians for many years in this lifetime to still fall to Satan's schemes, but this small period we live in wont even compare to the 1,000 years of sin no longer working in and around us that we wont be so easily susceptible.
Are you able to start lining out future time periods of the tribulation, 1,000 years, little season and new heavens & new earth?
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