p. 263 | REVELATION 20 by Stephen N. Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 23, 1901

By Stephen N. Haskell

S. N. H.

In this chapter we have the millennium, or the thousand years. It is especially stated that the first resurrection includes only those who sit in the judgment with Christ during the thousand years. The first resurrection takes place when the Lord comes. 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. So the thousand years here referred to is between the first and second resurrections.

At the close of the thousand years the city of God comes to the earth. It is then that Satan will be loosed out of his prison. He was bound to this desolate earth; the wicked were in their graves, and the righteous had gone to heaven, so there were none for him to deceive.

He who has been so active a destroyer of souls for six thousand years is now left to contemplate the work he has done, and his future destiny. When the wicked are raised, he gathers them from the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to battle. They surround the city of God, and, inspired by Satan, they think it can be taken. Christ and the saints appear above the city, and there, in full view of the lost, are the Ten Commandments, which have been trampled under foot by the wicked. Language can not describe that scene. There are the deceived and the deceiver; there are the false shepherds and the flocks that they have deceived, and it is then there will be a full realization of the first step taken that caused them to wander from the path of rectitude and righteousness. It is then they behold the reward of the righteous and the reward of the wicked. Ps. 112: 8-10. They have one final view of each other; and then, when it comes over Satan and the wicked that they are lost, there comes up one bitter wail of agony, the earth opens and swallows them up, and the fire in the earth connects with the fire that comes down from heaven, and the earth is burned, and from its ashes will come forth a new heaven and a new earth. The wicked are no more. This is the last act of the judgment.

“The revelator foretells the banishment of Satan, and the condition of chaos and desolation to which the earth is to be reduced; and he declares that this condition will exist for a thousand years. After presenting the scenes of the Lord’s second coming and the destruction of the wicked, the prophecy continues: ‘I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season.’”—“Great Controversy,” page 658.

During the thousand years between the first and the second resurrection, the judgment of the wicked takes place. The apostle Paul points to the judgment as an event that follows the second advent. “Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.” Daniel declares that when the Ancient of days came, “judgment was given to the saints of the Most High.” At this time the righteous reign as kings and priests unto God. John in the Revelation says: “I saw thrones, and they sat upon them;” “They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” It is at this time that, as foretold by Paul, “the saints shall judge the world.” In union with Christ they judge the wicked, comparing their acts with the statute book, the Bible, and deciding every case according to the deeds done in the body. Then the portion that the wicked must suffer is meted out according to their works, and is recorded against their names in the book of death.

Satan also and evil angels are judged by Christ and His people. Paul says, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” And Jude declares that “the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”

At the close of the thousand years the second resurrection will take place. Then the wicked will be raised from the dead, and appear before God for the execution of “the judgment written.” Thus the revelator, after describing the resurrection of the righteous, says, “The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” And Isaiah declares, concerning the wicked, “They shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.” See “Great Controversy,” page 660.