The battle concludes with the devil himself being captured and thrown
into the prison of the abyss. His human proxies have been cast into the eternal
lake of fire. Why he is bound in the abyss is something of a mystery. Perhaps
there is something in God's eternal plan that makes use of the existence and
actions of the tempter, to demonstrate to humans the fickleness of their
devotion, or to sift the hearts of individual people. In any event, mankind
will have 1,000 years of relief from his predations.
We
might wish that to apply this metaphorically to our lives, there would come a
point in which the devil would be bound so that we would no longer be tempted.
Alas, such is not our lot in this life. Perhaps, if we have been through
cataclysmic tribulation (as many believers have through the ages), the devil's
nature and character are an open book and we simply recognize his fingerprints.
But as long as we are in the flesh and live in the world, and until the devil
really is bound, he will camouflage his temptations in the ways of the world
and the flesh.
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