# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1859_S244
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

244 The Twentieth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John.

...but yielded to its pressure. As far as it lay with him, he merely dusted it off, unless it were actually broken at the touch and melted away by the light that this Lord held to it.

Now just as the body of the Lord Christ was, through the seal upon his grave, at the same time protected so that no one could steal it, so too has this seal both preserved the devil and rendered him harmless. It saved his life. No one other than Christ was permitted to presume to become his master. When he was then driven out into the wilderness, nothing had power over Satan any longer.

"upon it" — indicates that the seal is a power the devil was not prepared for. He himself does not know what actually does him the most harm and presses him down so mightily into the depths that he cannot move from the spot. It is too high above him, because it is too small for him to keep his haughty eyes fixed on it. It is exactly the same with the crucifixion of the Lord. That the deepest humiliation of Christ should inflict this branding wound upon him was too far above him; otherwise he would not have incited the Jews so. So he still thought that the persecutions he stirred up would wear down the confessors of the Gospel. But he never struck the seal. To this very day he still puzzles over it. That he no longer felt it after those thousand years, and that his grave suddenly stood open, only took him by surprise; he has not been able to explain it to himself.

"that he should deceive the nations no more" — this is really the key to the interpretation. The devil was to be permitted to deceive the nations no more. Now this was so completely fulfilled in the first thousand years of our era that, to this very day, the gates have remained low in the world that once shut themselves against the King of Glory. Thus the scales fell from the eyes of the old heathen, so that they realized how badly they had been deceived by their idols.

"until the thousand years were fulfilled" — a fearful prophecy. The world had then stood for five thousand years, and could scarcely do without the dear old lord for a single millennium.

"and after that he must be loosed for a little season" — he "must" — it is not his will at all, for he has become so clever that he sees that nothing will come of it except another sound defeat. But just as fire cannot help but burn wherever it is kindled, and the ocean waves flood the land when the dam breaks, because the one drives the other with irresistible force, so must Satan also break loose as soon as the seal is broken. This happens precisely when everything is perfectly certain that there is no more danger. — Of what time is meant here has already been said above. The comforting addition, "a little season," bears witness to God's great mercy. But as to what it consisted in, that he became loose again — since Gregory VII tore away the seal that was already loosened, and at the same time the Turks trod upon the neck of Christ's bride —