writes to Christians at Romans 16:20. Though it was nineteen hundred years ago, yet there the apostle Paul wrote: “For his part, the God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”

The anointed Christians, or footstep followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, are part of the seed of God’s woman under whose feet the head of the “original Serpent,” Satan, will shortly be crushed. Of these anointed Christians there is only a remnant of some thousands upon earth today, according to available authentic records. If the crushing of Satan under their feet by Jehovah God, through his King Jesus Christ, is to take place shortly, then it must be at the approaching battle of Armageddon, the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” The crushing of Satan or the bruising of him at the head and the abyssing of Satan and his demons must be identical.

This abyssing of Satan the Devil, who is both the god and the invisible king of antitypical Babylon, was prophetically referred to in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah. In that chapter the ambitious king of Babylon, who aspired to make himself like the Most High God, pictures Satan the Devil. Beginning with verse 15, Jehovah God says concerning the overthrow of the king of Babylon: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit. . . . All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a dead body trodden under foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever.”—Isa. 14:15-20, AS.

The king of ancient Babylon was actually put to death at the time of the city’s overthrow in 539 B.C. The fulfillment of this prophecy literally upon the king of ancient Babylon in the putting of him to death was therefore a confirmation of the fact that this prophecy will be fulfilled in its complete sense by the abyssing of Satan the Devil and all his demon angels at the battle of Armageddon. The fact that the place where the Devil is restrained for a thousand years is referred to as the abyss should furnish no objection to the understanding that he is put to death. At Romans 10:6, 7 the “abyss” is used to designate the place of death out of which the individual is brought back to life again. There the abyss must refer to the memorial tomb in which the Lord Jesus Christ lay dead for parts of three days and out of which he was resurrected by Jehovah’s power; for Romans 10:6, 7 reads: “The righteousness resulting from faith speaks in this manner: ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” that is, to bring Christ down; or, “Who will descend into the abyss?” that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.’”

Jesus Christ was dead for parts of three days in that abyss, because he had been bruised at the heel by the original Serpent. If in his case the abyss meant the place of death out of which he was restored to life, then the abyss into which he will cast Satan the Devil and his demons at the battle of Armageddon and imprison them for a thousand years must likewise refer to a place of death out of which Satan the Devil and his demons are brought at the end of the thousand years of Christ’s reign, in order to bring the final test upon the uplifted and obedient of mankind, to test their unswerving loyalty and integrity. The abyssing of the original Serpent, Satan the Devil, at the climax of the battle of Armageddon must therefore be the fulfillment of the Edenic prophecy that he should be bruised at the head by the seed of God’s woman. It may be referred to as killing.

Need for Right Principles

Morality depends on the right kind of religious principles. George Washington, the first president of the United States, sensed this and said in his “Farewell Address to the People of the United States”: “Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”