At the coming of Christ the wicked are blotted from the face of the whole earth-- consumed with the spirit of His mouth and destroyed by the brightness of His glory . Christ takes His people to the City of God , and the earth is emptied of its inhabitants . " Behold , the Lord maketh the earth empty , and maketh it waste , and turneth it upside down , and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof ." " The land shall be utterly emptied , and utterly spoiled : for the Lord hath spoken this word ." " Because they have transgressed the laws , changed the ordinance , broken the everlasting covenant . Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth , and they that dwell therein are desolate : therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned ." Isaiah 24:1 , 3 , 5 , 6 .
The whole earth appears like a desolate wilderness . The ruins of cities and villages destroyed by the earthquake , uprooted trees , ragged rocks thrown out by the sea or torn out of the earth itself , are scattered over its surface , while vast caverns mark the spot where the mountains have been rent from their foundations . Now the event takes place foreshadowed in the last solemn service of the Day of Atonement . When the ministration in the holy of holies had been completed , and the sins of Israel had been removed from the sanctuary by virtue of the blood of the sin offering , then the scapegoat was presented alive before the Lord ; and in the presence of the congregation the high priest confessed over him " all the iniquities of the children of Israel , and all their transgressions in all their sins , putting them upon the head of the goat ." Leviticus 16:21 . In like manner , when the work of atonement in the heavenly sanctuary has been completed , then in the presence of God and heavenly angels and the hosts of the redeemed the sins of God ' s people will be placed upon Satan ; he will be declared guilty of all the evil which he has caused them to commit . And as the scapegoat was sent away into a land not inhabited , so Satan will be banished to the desolate earth , an uninhabited and dreary wilderness .
The revelator foretells the banishment of Satan and the condition of chaos and desolation to which the earth is to be reduced , and he declares that this condition will exist for a thousand years . After presenting the scenes of the Lord ' s second coming and the destruction of the wicked , the prophecy continues : " I saw an angel come down from heaven , having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand . And he laid hold on the dragon , that old serpent , which is the devil , and Satan , and bound him a thousand years , and cast him into the bottomless pit , and shut him up , and set a seal upon him , that he should deceive the nations no more , till the thousand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season ." Revelation 20:1-3 .
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