My email inbox last week must have been just about as confused as a termite in a yo-yo. My column on the King and the coming Kingdom drew emails that ranged from grateful and thrilled on one end of the spectrum to outright hate mail on the other.

To the credit of those on the hate mail side of the aisle, though, their emails were incredibly entertaining. More than just a bit unhinged, but entertaining nonetheless.

But since the column clearly resonated with a lot of people, I will do as I told you I might at the end of last week’s column and tell you what comes next.

It begins with these words from Revelation 20: 7-8. “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 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.”

There will be some lost people who survive the Tribulation Period and go into the Millennial Reign. They will produce children during that time, and many of their children will follow their lead and refuse to accept King Jesus. But for 1,000 years, though men may be wicked inwardly, they will not be able to show it outwardly. Not one act of rebellion or disobedience or violence will be allowed. It will be absolute peace, safety, calm and quiet. The earth that was ravaged during the Tribulation Period will be healed and whole. The devil will be locked away in the bottomless pit for every second of that 1,000 years and will not be able to lead one person astray.

You would think that after all that, people would decide that God’s ways are best after all. But unfortunately, that will not be the case. And after 1,000 years, the enemy is going to be unleashed. And it will not be man that opens the door; it will be God. Why? Because of this thing called free will. In mankind’s future, humanity will have 1,000 years in paradise to see how good God is and yet will once again fall for Satan’s lies anyway. God will open the pit, a choice will be offered, and it will not go well.

After the entire Millennial Reign, the devil will be able to go out into every corner of the globe and find a countless number of people to rebel against God. They will immediately follow Satan into battle against the God who has brought them nothing but peace and prosperity.

In this coming rebellion, Gog and Magog, humanly speaking, will be running the show. From passages like Genesis 10:2, Ezekiel 38:2-3, and references to those and related names from history, we can pretty well establish that these are references to what we now call Russia. America is the only superpower today, but whatever she will be called after the Millennium, Russia will be in charge and will lead the world against God.

The war will be massive – and it will also be brutally brief. Here it is, in its entirety:

Revelation 20:9 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.

The camp of the saints and the beloved city is Jerusalem. Many Middle Eastern nations and groups today are doing their best to destroy Israel and eradicate the Jews from the face of the earth. I can tell you exactly how well that is going to work: it will be an utter failure. A bare minimum of 1007 years from the time you read this column, Israel and Jerusalem will still exist and will still be the target of the devil’s ire. But when the devil and his army come against them, it will simply be a quick and devouring fire of God from out of heaven, and all of those armies will be gone.

As for the devil, his story amongst us ends one verse later:

Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

He will never be heard from again. He will never tempt another person. He will never again accuse the brethren. He will reap what he has sown, and he will do so forever.

The Great White Throne Judgment of the lost occurs right after that, and you can read about that in Revelation 20:11-15. After that comes the new heaven and the new earth, which I may write about next week. But in case I do not, or if you want to know more about things to come, I have written about it all pretty extensively in my verse-by-verse study, “The Revelation: Ready Or Not,” which is easy enough to find on Amazon and in many bookstores.

Some truly breathtaking days are ahead!