Revelation 20

Last Sunday our Sunday School lesson was Revelation 20. I have a question and will print the text that pertains to it:

Rev. 20:1-3: NASB
1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;

3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.

V. 7-10:
7 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison,

8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.

9 And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

A few questions: We see Satan being cast into the abyss before the thousand years, then released and in the end cast into lake of fire.

1. Apparently the abyss is not a lake of fire? It is not hell?

2.But a place of torment?

3.Did this not give Satan a foretaste of what is to come for him in the future?

4.Since this likely is the case, why did he not repent? Or couldn't he?

I know Scripture does not appear to answer this particular question but my mind cannot wrap itself around this fact that one who has tasted 'hell' would continue on in his rebellion, that he would not repent. Unless his hatred is so intense he cannot think straight. This fact just boggles my mind...I know of no one who will deliberately hurt himself knowing full well the suffering associated with pain (unless it is something like childbirth or surgery).

ginnyrose

ginnyrose: I am not convinced that when we read that the devil is locked in the abyss with a large chain that we can say there is a literal abyss and a literal chain. Although the events in Rev. are literal, much of what we read is a picture of the event with varying degrees of symbolism. What I do think we can be sure of is that Satan will be prevented by God from deceiving the nations for a period of 1000 years. I don't think Satan has any misconceptions about His end. If nothing else,he can read as well as we can, and his end is clearly laid out in scripture.

Jud 1:6
(6) And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

God has granted repentance to man, to sons of Adam. But God did not do the same for the angels that kept not their first estate, nor for Satan. It is not given to Satan to repent as it was given to man to do. Satan made a decision, "I will be like the most High. I will ascend and sit on a throne." Yet God said he would be cast into a pit and that the redeemed would look on him narrowly and say, "Is this the one that deceived the nations?" As if to say, this is all there is to this "great deceiver"?