Millennium • Devotion 5: Hope

Josh Thayer

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:1-6

I think reading Revelation can be a daunting task. There is all this talk of dragons and beasts, sometimes I feel like I am reading “Lord of the Rings.” Is Frodo riding the dragon holding the ring? Here I digress and I think first we need to understand that Revelation was written in “apocalyptic” form, which is just a fancy word for a type of Jewish literature that uses symbolic imagery to communicate hope to those in the midst of persecution. So all of these things that John is writing about have not actually happened. God basically gave John a vision of what would take place in the future.

We find ourselves here in chapter 20 and John references 1,000 years a few separate times. First, he locked up Satan (the dragon) for 1,000 years. Then we see reference to people who had been killed over their belief in Jesus and they came back to life and reigned for 1,000 years. Also, there is a second death and there are some more reigning for 1,000 years. If I can sum this up simply, the 1,000 years is referred to as the Millennium and it is understood differently among scholars. Basically, nobody knows the answer to this 1,000 years, you can “Google” and do your own research, but here is what I want to focus on from this passage - hope!

It does not matter what you believe about the 1,000 years, because at the end of the day it does not matter. That is not going to make or break your relationship with Jesus. At the end of the day, we have hope because Jesus came, lived a perfect life, chose to die for you and me to give us a way, and to give us hope that we will be with God in Heaven at the end of it all. Whether you lean toward postmillennialism, premillennialism, amillennialism, or whatever other millennialism words you want to make up does not matter. What matters is you choose to live for Jesus every day. You need to choose to live a life that is different from everyone else. Choose a life where Jesus is the center and everything else revolves around your relationship with God!