Sitting on thirty-seven acres of land southwest of Colorado Springs, ADX Florence is the most secure prison in America. If you could walk its corridors, you’d pass a who’s who of archvillains, including Zacarias Moussaoui, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks; Terry Nichols, who helped plan the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; James Marcello, the notorious Chicago crime boss; El Chapo, the Mexican drug kingpin; and until recently, Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Kaczynski was found dead in his cell in 2023.
Superspy Robert Hanssen also died in his cell there. In fact, most of those in the Florence supermax will never leave the place alive. The prisoners have extremely long sentences, and they’re largely kept in solitary confinement with little or no time outside their cells.
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Each unit is seven by twelve feet, with a stool and desk made of poured concrete, a concrete bed with a foam pad, and a toilet with a sink at its top. The cells are soundproof, and multiple cameras monitor each prisoner twenty-four hours a day. Only a narrow slit of a window lets in light, and the slits are designed so prisoners cannot ascertain where they are in the complex.1
There’s never been an escape from ADX Florence.
I know of only one penitentiary more secure than America’s supermax complex in Colorado. Designed by almighty God for the worst of the evil agents in the unseen realm, that prison is known as the bottomless pit or the abyss.
According to Revelation 20, when Jesus returns to set up His millennial kingdom, an angel will come from heaven. John described him as “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” (vv. 1–3).
In the The Coming Golden Age, we have laid the groundwork for the concept of the Millennium. The way Scripture promises the coming Golden Age in both the Old and New Testaments. What will happen at the battle of Armageddon, why Jerusalem is critical to the Millennium, and the roles of King Jesus and Prince David during that thousand-year period.
In this article, we are going to examine what life will be like during the coming Golden Age. And one of the most significant facts about that period is the total absence of Satan. The world will be free of his provocations for 365,250 days—a thousand devil-free years!
I want to point out three things about these opening verses in Revelation 20: the person of the devil, the prison of the demons, and earth’s period of deliverance from Satan’s schemes.
The Person of the Devil
In Revelation 20:2, the apostle John used four different words or titles for this person of evil. We’re told a powerful angel from heaven will lay hold of “the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.”
What’s behind these four terms?
The Dragon
First, John referred to the devil as a dragon. This image occurred earlier in Revelation 12, where John saw a “great, fiery red dragon” who sought to destroy the Messiah at the time of our Lord’s first coming (vv. 1–5) and who will dominate the events around His second coming.
We also see this dragon in the Old Testament. Isaiah 27:1 says, “In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea” (esv). Similar to other prophets, Isaiah pictured the evil that came against Israel as a sea monster or Leviathan.
Here, in Revelation 20, John identified the ultimate version of this dragon as Satan.
The Serpent of Old
Revelation 20:2 goes on to mention “that serpent of old.” This takes us all the way back to Genesis 3, when the serpent appeared in the garden of Eden to tempt Eve and Adam into doubting and disobeying God. As we’ve just seen, a similar image occurs in Isaiah 27:1, where our Enemy is described as a fleeing, twisting serpent.
While researching for The Coming Golden Age, I read that scientists recently discovered the largest species of snake ever recorded. The discovery was made while actor Will Smith was filming a travel documentary for National Geographic. The newly named northern green anaconda species is massive—over twenty feet long and weighing as much as a thousand pounds. Popular Dutch biologist and thrill seeker Freek Vonk swam alongside one of the snakes, and the video gave me the chills!2
Then I remembered that the largest and deadliest serpent in history isn’t an anaconda. It’s the devil, who slithered his way into our human family, infected us with his toxins, and who has proven to be as mean as—well, as a snake.
If the devil gives you the shivers as well, don’t worry. He’s going into the abyss at the dawn of the Millennium.
The Devil
In Revelation 20:2, John gave us a third title for this evil personage: “the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil.” Our English word devil comes from the Latin diabolus, which itself comes from the Greek word John used here—diabolos. The root meaning is “one who accuses or slanders.”
In Genesis 3, the devil slandered God in front of Adam and Eve. In the centuries since, he has delighted in accusing God’s children before the throne, pointing out our faults and making accusations against us as he did about Job (Job 1:9–11), Joshua (Zech. 3:1), and the entire family of believers (Rev. 12:10–12). His efforts are thwarted because we’re covered with the precious blood of Christ, though that doesn’t stop his accusations.
Satan
In Revelation 20:2, John’s final word was Satan. “He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.” That term comes straight from the Greek word satanas, which means “adversary.” This word occurs more than thirty times in the New Testament, and what an awful association we find when tracing it through Scripture. Satan tempts us (1 Cor. 7:5), takes advantage of us (2 Cor. 2:11), buffets us (12:7), hinders us (1 Thess. 2:18), provokes us to lie and to deceive (Acts 5:3), and tries to steal the Word of God from our hearts (Mark 4:15).
Thomas A. Tarrants, president emeritus of the C. S. Lewis Institute, wrote, “We can safely say that [Satan’s] goals are to reclaim or at least neutralize God’s people, to destroy the church, to overthrow the kingdom of God, to displace God as King of creation and to become the object of all worship. This helps explain much of the evil and suffering that rages on earth.”3
If you have ever felt unusually tempted, buffeted, taken advantage of, hindered, provoked, or weakened toward the Word, it’s likely the adversary was plying his arts on you.
Oh, to be rid of him!
And, oh, we will be!
The Prison of Demons
Now let’s look at the opening verses of Revelation 20 again and notice the prison to which the devil is destined: “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” (vv. 1–3).
The term “bottomless pit” is better translated as “abyss” because the Greek word John used was abyssos, meaning “a very deep place.” This is God’s supermax prison for evil spirits. It isn’t hell. That will be the devil’s final destiny. But for a thousand years, Satan will be banished from earth and imprisoned in this mysterious penitentiary.
The book of Jude says, “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day” (Jude v. 6 niv). For reasons only God knows, He allowed the devil and some of the evil spirits to travel around earth’s atmosphere and cause trouble, but in mercy to us He imprisoned some of these principalities and powers in the abyss.
Remember when Jesus cast the demons out of the man in Luke 8? Those demons “begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss” (v. 31 niv). It was a place they dreaded. During the trumpet judgments in Revelation 9, an angel will open the shaft leading down to the abyss and release these malignant and heinous demons. They will swarm the earth, terrorizing its inhabitants. This will happen during the Tribulation. Thankfully, after those seven years, all demons will be reincarcerated in the abyss along with Satan himself.
John told us in Revelation 20 that the devil will be bound with chains he cannot escape and consigned to a prison he cannot avoid for a thousand years.
The Period of Deliverance
During that time, John said, Satan will “deceive the nations no more till the thousand years [are] finished” (Rev. 20:3). During the millennial reign of Christ, we who live and govern with Him on earth will be delivered from Satan’s tyranny. As Swiss theologian René Pache wrote, “What change shall take place when the tempter is no longer able to seduce the nations! That will be better than it was in Eden, for Satan caused our first parents to fall.”4
This doesn’t mean there won’t be sin on the earth. Those with mortal bodies will still battle their fallen nature, and the blessed eternal state of the new heaven and new earth is yet to come. Think of it like this. Today we have three great enemies of the soul: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Consider how different it will be without the Enemy to bedevil us.
In this definitive book, esteemed Bible teacher and pastor Dr. David Jeremiah unveils the Second Coming of Christ and His Millennium reign on earth with remarkable clarity. He also demonstrates how our understanding and response to these significant events can transform our lives today.
The Bible says, “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19 niv). Paul said the devil is “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4). During the coming Golden Age, he will lose his dominion here.
Gone will be Satan’s ability to amplify sexual temptation and marital infidelity (1 Cor. 7:5). While we may be tempted, we’ll not have to confront the supercharged enticements of Satan (Matt. 4:1–10). We’ll not have to contend with being sifted as wheat by his evil designs (Luke 22:31). Nor will he fill our hearts to lie to one another as he did Ananias in Acts 5:3. We’ll be able to better forgive one another because we’ll be free from Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11).
He’ll not swoop down on listening souls and snatch the Word out of their hearts (Mark 4:15). Nor will he hinder the workers of God as he hindered Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:18. Nor will he physically and spiritually bind people as he did the poor woman in Luke 13:16 or oppress the poor and needy as he did in Acts 10:38.
Gone will be his ability to plague us with demonically caused natural disasters, family tragedies, illnesses, and physical attacks (Job 1:13–2:8). We’ll be freed from his ability to hinder the work of the Lord on this planet.
No longer will he create agitation among the nations or prompt rulers to wage wars, commit genocide, and oppress the innocent (Dan. 10:13–14). His power to influence the leaders of the world to sin will be shelved for a thousand years (1 Chron. 21:1). Revelation 20:3 specifically says, “He should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.”
Satan was “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), so we would expect murders to be virtually nonexistent during the Golden Age of Christ. He “has sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8), so we would expect the Golden Age to exhibit moral character and righteousness. He was “puffed up with pride” and coaxed others to the same (1 Tim. 3:6), so we would expect the millennial age to be humbler and gentler.
Today, the devil makes many people take leave of their senses and do his will (2 Tim. 2:26). The coming Golden Age should be a time of wisdom and sensibility. The devil delights in throwing God’s children into prison and persecuting them in all manner of ways (Rev. 2:10), so we would expect the reign of Christ to rejoice in the free expression of the gospel with little or no opposition.
The thought of Satan being bound is comforting. This is especially true because, for strange reasons I don’t fully understand, we’re enduring a resurgence of interest in Satan in our culture.
In 2023, Newsweek published a major article entitled, “Satan Is Getting Hot as Hell in American Pop Culture.” The writer, Paul Bond, who covers cultural trends for Newsweek, wrote, “The Devil is front and center in movies, TV shows, podcasts, and even children’s books. . . . On Netflix alone there are dozens of titles dealing with hellish demons.”
Bond quoted Carlos Martins, host of The Exorcist Files, as saying that humans crave spirituality. Church and synagogue attendance has been declining in the United States. To fill the void, many people are embracing “a rejection of received social customs and expected behavioral norms in favor of embracing ‘me-first’ pleasure. . . . The adoption of Satan as a figurehead is merely another ‘shock’ ceiling through which the movement has broken through.”
Bond added, “More Americans are opening the door for Satan to enter their lives.”5
As frightening as that is, remember, we may only be seven years away from the moment when God will throw Satan into the abyss and slam the door after him. The knowledge of that future promise should comfort us today. Though Satan is active, he cannot overcome the power of the cross of Jesus Christ and our Lord’s resurrection. Even now, we’re to live in victory.
For half a millennium now, Christians have been singing Martin Luther’s great hymn “A Mighty Fortress.” Let’s anticipate the day when the prince of darkness will be banished by just a word or two from our Savior’s lips:
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For, lo! His doom is sure;
One little word shall fell him.6
Citations:
1“The World’s Most Secure Buildings: ADX Florence Prison,” IDENTIV (blog), July 20, 2022, https://www.identiv.com/resources/blog/the-worlds-most-secure-buildings-adx-florence-prison.
2“New Species of Amazon Anaconda, World’s Largest Snake, Discovered,” Reuters, March 1, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/new-species-amazon-anaconda-worlds-largest-snake-discovered-2024–03–01/; Jesse O’Neill, “Anaconda Species Thought to Be Largest in the World Discovered During Will Smith Documentary Shoot,” New York Post, February 26, 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/02/26/world-news/new-species-of-giant-anaconda-discovered-during-filming-of-will-smith-docuseries/.
3Thomas A. Tarrants, “Hindrances to Discipleship: The Devil,” C. S. Lewis Institute, June 4, 2012, https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/hindrances-to-discipleshipthe-devil/.
4René Pache, The Return of Jesus Christ (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1955), 395.
5Paul Bond, “Satan Is Getting Hot as Hell in American Pop Culture,” Newsweek, March 28, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/satan-getting-hot-hell-american-pop-culture-1790669.
6Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress,” Hymnary.org, accessed June 24, 2024, https://hymnary.org/text/a_mighty_fortress_is_our_god_a_bulwark.
This article is an excerpt from The Coming Golden Age.
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