Mark 12:24 – “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living”. So people do not vanish, they do not cease to exist when they die. They go into eternity, and they're either in the presence of God - Paul said to “be absent from the body; present with the Lord” - they're present with the Lord.
Stephen, when he died said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. So the Bible's very clear - when you die, you're either: in the presence of the Lord; or in your place of torment. There comes a point where there'll be a resurrection of all people; and following that resurrection, a determination is made of your destiny forever – forever- based on what you did.
Revelations 20:4 says: “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. And I saw the souls of those who'd been beheaded for their witness to Jesus, and for the word of God, and had not worshipped the beast or his image, not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived - notice this - they lived, and they reigned with, Jesus Christ for a thousand years”.
In the beginning of Revelations 20, there will come a point in time when the devil will be bound and imprisoned; so the spiritual powers which have deceived the nations for generations will be bound - their influence will no longer be there. They'll no longer be able to cast their influence upon the nations of the earth; so there will be a period of a thousand years, and in that period of a thousand years, all demonic activity will cease. The devil and his cohorts will be bound for one thousand years. That 1000 years will be a period in earth's history, that has never been seen ever before, but which is prophesied from one end of the Bible to the other.
There will be an unprecedented season of prosperity and peace in the earth - it's a great hope to look forward to. There's no political solution to the dilemmas that we face in the world. The only solution, really, ultimately is the coming of Christ; when what He will do will bind spiritual powers.
Revelations 20:1 – “I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having a key to the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years; he cast him in the bottomless pit, shut him up, set a seal on him, so he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished.” But then he's released for a little while.
So there will be a period where there's no demonic activity. Can you imagine no demonic activity? A lot of people can't understand the extent to which demonic activity creates the problems in the nations. Much of the church in the West won't even acknowledge it, and deal with it; but for us who understand things of the spirit, we understand there is a very real spirit world. Spiritual powers influence people, and they run, and control, and manipulate the courses of nations. They control what goes on in the earth, through deception, through spiritual power. Can you imagine when they are bound for a thousand years, what it will be like on the earth, without all of that there? An unprecedented season of peace and prosperity in earth history - until the devil is released again.
“Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgement was committed to them”. So now he sees in the spirit - and he sees thrones. A throne is a position of governance, a position of authority and power - authority that the devil has had to give up. A body of believers has taken possession of those; and now have the power and authority representing the Lord, to bring about amazing and substantial changes in the earth.