hysop
RIP Ryder (2022) & Hammy (2019)
Well, remember this scripture here?
Again, great questions!
Remember where we said Satan is bound for 1,000 years on this planet with no one to tempt because all the saved went to heaven with Jesus and all the wicked are dead? According to this verse, the wicked WILL be resurrected, but not until the end of the millennium (see below).
When the wicked, or unsaved that are living when Jesus comes get burned up, this is not their final destruction. Remember, the wicked that are already dead in their graves sleep through the whole thing. See 1 Thess. 4:13-18. At this point, Jesus is just putting all the wicked to sleep for 1,000 years. The saved go to heaven with Him during that period. They have a work to do. It is a work of investigative judgment:
Revelation 20:4 KJV
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
What is this judgment?
1 Corinthians 6:2-3 KJV
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? [3] Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
The saved have the opportunity during this time to pull back the veil and see behind the scenes, so to speak. God is all about truth and transparency. He wants to be sure there are no lingering doubts in anyone's mind that He is fair, just, merciful and loving. If your loved one is not there, you will get to find out why. You will know that God spared no effort to save him or her. Only when God has been fully vindicated will it be time for the executive phase of judgment to take place.
Meanwhile, nobody lives on the earth during the 1,000 years except Satan and possibly his evil angels. Let's see what happens at the end of the 1,000 years.
Revelation 20:1-3 KJV
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. [2] And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, [3] 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.
Satan is "bound" to this earth, which may be like a black hole during this period ("bottomless pit"), by "chains" of circumstances beyond his control. With the saved in heaven beyond his reach and the wicked dead, he has no one to tempt. But at the end of the 1,000 years, when the wicked are resurrected, his circumstances change. He has all the unsaved of all the ages to tempt. This is when Jesus comes back to this earth with all the saints in the Holy City (Rev. 21:2*). Here's what happens next:
Revelation 20:7-9 KJV
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, [8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. [9] And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
So we see that, not only is Satan unrepentant, but so are the unsaved. There would be no point in extended mercy to them any further, or giving them a second chance. The millennium is not an opportunity for the wicked to repent. They had a lifetime of opportunities, just the same as the saved. They made their choice. The wicked are eternally destroyed at the end of the millennium. This is the second death, from which there is no resurrection. This death is final.
The fire goes out after devouring all the wicked, the evil angels, the beast, the false prophet, the antichrist, and Satan. I've referenced Malachi 4:1-3 before. The saved will tread upon the ashes of the wicked. And then God will make a new heavens and a new earth. He will re-create this world as He intended it to be in the beginning, when He called it "very good." Rev. 21 is very exciting but my favorite verse is this one:
Revelation 21:3 KJV
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Imagine! God is moving His headquarters HERE! The throne of His kingdom, the center of the universe, is going to be HERE on this Earth! You asked
Why would the saints go to heaven and come down to earth just to be surrounded?
Well, they went to heaven to open the books, because Satan got left here on this burnt-out planet both to consider his history and ponder his future; and God brought them back in order to finish what He started and to keep His promises, among which is: "the meek shall inherit the Earth."
This planet is our home. God made it for us. Satan stole it. Jesus bought it back with His blood, and He always intended to restore and return it to us. That's what redemption is. If you ever had to hock a valuable item for some quick cash, you know that your goal is to "redeem" it - to buy it back. That's what Jesus did. He redeemed us. He bought us back. And He is going to live here with us as a sign of His victory over sin and death for all eternity. That is the meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles. God will set up His tabernacle with us! How awesome is that!
* In Rev. 20, John just refers to this as "the camp of the saints," because he is focusing on the events that he is describing, which are very dramatic. But in Rev. 22, he gives more attention to detail and describes what he saw with a more artistic eye. Imagine if you were giving a police report. At first you would just describe what happened. Later you would give a police artist the visual details.
Thank you. I had read about the saints judging angels and the world. I had just never heard of it being in heaven, I will definitely pray and keep reading. I guess the part I’m having difficulty with is how Satan being bound in the bottomless pit is the whole earth since in Revelation chp 9 it talks about the bottomless pit. That’s why I take it literally that the bottomless pit is a pit and not the earth as a whole.
1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
