ir tongues shall consume away in their mouth," Zech. 14:12. "For,
behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh
shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them
neither root nor branch," Mal. 4:1. "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he
shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it," Isa. 13:9. Thus will the
Saviour come "in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God,
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of his power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints, and to be
admired in all them that believe in that day," (2 Thess. 1:8-10): saying
to the nations on his left, "Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," Matt. 25:41. Thus will he
"gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do
iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be
wailing and gnashing of teeth," _Ib._, 13:41, 42. The destruction of all
the wicked from the earth is followed by:

The Binding of Satan.

"And I saw an angel descending from heaven, having the key of the
abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he seized the dragon, the
old serpent, who is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand
years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and set a
seal over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till
the thousand years were completed; and after that, he must be
loosed a short time." Rev. 20:1-3.

The angel descending from heaven, must be a representative of his own
order; for at this epoch there are no other orders of beings for him to be
a representative of. He therefore symbolizes the angels who are
commissioned to "gather out of his kingdom all things that offend," Matt.
13:41.

The "key," "pit," and "chain," symbolize the instruments of restraint and
confinement to which Satan is to be subjected; and his being bound and
confined symbolize his restraint.

The "Dragon" is expressly called "that old serpent, which is the Devil and
Satan." With the appendages of heads and horns--symbols of political
sovereignty--he is used in Rev. 12:3, as a symbol of the Roman civil power,
under Pagan rule;