Revelation: Part 55

When anyone anywhere responds to this knowledge by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to him.

Revelation 20. This is something that I believe we should read in its entirety first before we start analyzing it. And I’m reading from the new American standard Bible. And pay close attention.

And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed. Now, you wonder why the world is in such a mess? There’s the key right there.

It tells us. He’s been deceiving not just individuals but nations all down through history. After these things he must be released for a short time. And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given to them.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus because of the Word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from prison. Did you know six times it says a thousand years? Note that in your mind, okay? And in verse 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; and the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.

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. 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. And I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

Notice the books are plural. We have got several books involved here. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Very somber, sober passages here at the end. Passages I take no pleasure in teaching.

But they have to be taught. All right. Let’s go back now to the first part. Verse 1.

I saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key of the abyss and the great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him so that he should not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. Now, why is Satan chained for a thousand years? What kind of an earth is Jesus going to set up when he comes back and sets up this kingdom that will last a thousand years?

It’s going to be a world of perfect environment, perfect peace, a world that will have extraordinary capabilities or I should say possibilities for those who are believers to live exemplary spiritual lives. Here’s why. Today, you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, fight war on three fronts. What are they?

That’s it. The world, the flesh, and the devil. So we have got three very strong adversaries or areas of adversaries. The world.

The world system. 1 John 5 says, we know that the whole world and its cosmos, which means a system, a well-organized system, the whole world system lies in the power of the evil one. So Satan is the one who set up and is in charge of the world system in which we live. That’s why it tells us not to be part of the world system.

We’re in the world system, but don’t be a part of it. Don’t get caught up in it. And so that is something that constantly tears away at our faith and our commitment to Christ. That is a battlefront we have to be aware of and be ready to fight the good fight with promises of God and dependence on the Holy Spirit who lives in every one of us.

The second front, the flesh, now, the flesh is a term that’s used in the Scripture, but it means a sin nature that we all are born with. We’re all born with a nature that is in opposition to God. And when we’re born again, God puts a new nature inside of us, a new spiritual nature that has the kind of life that God has. And this new nature will always want to follow God.

But he doesn’t take away the old sin nature. It’s still there. They’re side by side. I’ll never forget a dramatic lesson that I learned as a new believer.

I got to a point where I was wondering, did I really believe, am I really saved? And I was really concerned about it. And I was really concerned that I had the right kind of faith and you know how Satan will come up with all kinds of things. Didn’t hold your little toe right, wouldn’t you believe it.

Everything to make you doubt that you’re saved. And I remember, I went over this with my pastor, and he started laughing. He said, well, let me tell you something. If you weren’t saved, you wouldn’t be concerned about this.

He said, do you sense a civil war going on inside of you? I said, man, the American civil war was nothing compared to what’s going on inside of me. Because I said, you know, I never had anything like this before I was a christian or before I believed. Yes, I am a christian, huh?

He said, yeah, that’s right. Because you now have a nature that now wants to follow God and you still have a nature that wants to follow Satan. And the two fight. And the only way that you can win the battle is not to try to fight this old nature yourself.

You do, you’re lost. But to say God never took away the responsibility of you saying no to the old nature’s urgings, temptations, but the minute you say no, then you’ve got to turn and say, okay, Lord, you lead me to myself, I’m a goner. But right now, I depend upon you, and you let the Holy Spirit fight this battle for you. And, you know, Satan knows every weakness that each one of us have.

Now, we all have different areas of weakness. And that’s why it’s sometimes, well, it would be humorous if it weren’t so serious, but sometimes it’s almost humorous to watch people in various churches because you’ll find people who have the same strongpoints, because we all have strongpoints and weak points. You’ll find people that have the same strongpoints. We’ll all gather together and become a clique.

And then they’ll look down their nose and criticize those that have weakness in the area where they’re strong. But that’s where, you know, the Lord comes in, says that, hey, your weakness is no better than somebody else’s and your strongpoints are not any better than somebody else’s. We’re all sinners. And the things that we need to trust the Lord in, we have to learn.

And so there’s this battle of the old nature versus the new nature. And the very fact that you see the battle going on is proof positive you’ve been born again. It’s kind of a backward way of assurance, but that’s the way it goes. Now, the third front is Satan himself.

Satan and his army. He’s got a well-organized army of fallen angels that are called demons in the Scripture. Ephesians talks about them having ranks and orders just like an army. And so we fight on that front, too.

And Satan and his demons are a formidable foe. Now, just think of what’s going to be here. This is telling us, first of all, the world system will be completely changed. Why?

Because Jesus is going to rule on the earth. So the system of the world that exists during this time is set up by Jesus and Satan is bound. He can’t deceive anybody. And secondly, Satan can’t do anything, so he’s bound.

So we only will — people in the Millennium who are still mortals will only have to fight on one front. The old sin nature. But there will be extraordinary means for believers in the Millennium to be able to live for Christ. Because you don’t have the kind of territory to battle that we do today.

That is when the Sermon on the Mount will be lived. That’s not the way of life for us today. When Jesus laid out the Sermon on the Mount, he was laying out a way of life for the kingdom he was announcing he was bringing. He never brought it because they never accepted him.

And the Sermon on the Mount became a death list because it showed us how good we would have to be if we were going to earn our own salvation. And now that only says breaking the word outwardly is wrong. Jesus said, thinking about it in your heart is wrong. And no one can do anything about that.

The pharisees were proud. They could keep the law on the outside, but inside, they were ravening wolves, Jesus said. And so the way of life during the Millennium will be amazing and sin will be suppressed. And then it says that Satan is going to be released at the end of a thousand years.

Why? Why would God release him? Well, you see, the kingdom, when Christ comes back, he sets up this kingdom. It will begin with only what?

Only believers. And yet, they’re going to have children. That’s the way we know that they’re mortals. Because immortals cannot have children.

And it tells us that they’re going to have children and they’re going to replenish the earth and repopulate the earth and everything. Well, what happens is that in this perfect environment, great spirituality and so forth, there will be, it says, as many as the sand that covers the seashore who are faking it and never really believed Jesus Christ. And so Satan is released for what reason? To bring out into the open what God sees in the heart.

And they will immediately follow him and rebel against Jesus. And, you see, that shows God has, you know, I talked to, before I started with revelation, I was going through God’s outline of history, what I call dispensations. They’ve been several different ages of in which God has dealt with man under different circumstances and different revelation. And from the start to the finish, God is teaching his philosophy of history.

And that philosophy of history begins with perfect environment. Man rebels against God and rejected him. And he fell, was separated from God, lost spiritual life, which he was originally created with, and that’s why he had to be born again. But from the time man rebelled against God and lost relationship with him, man has been trying, through various systems and various political systems and everything else to get back to what?

Perfect environment. Why? Because man just can’t get away from this theory of his that he is what he is because of his environment. Philosophy ought to just be kicked out of the curriculum along with psychology.

Not that there aren’t some things, I mean, you know, I know some really godly men like cloud, dr. Cloud, who take the Bible and use it to help counsel and help people that are mentally disturbed. But if you start with the assumption that a person is what he is because of his environment, you’re not going to help them. What does God’s philosophy of history teach us?

It starts in a perfect environment. Thousand-year kingdom at the end of history is perfect environment. What happens in both cases? Man rejects God.

There’s the problem. Man rejects God. And the answer is not to get perfect environment again. The answer is to be born again.

You got it? God works in simplicity. That’s why Satan is released. Now, verse 4, I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given to them.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the Word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. All right. These are the people who believe during the seven-year Tribulation that follows the Church age. We’re going to be evacuated.

Then there’s a short interlude and then there’s a seven-year period Daniel predicted that will start to click off. It is during that time that there’s going to be a tremendous number of both Jews and Gentiles who are going to believe in Jesus the Savior. But the majority of them are going to be martyred. When Jesus starts the new earth in this thousand-year kingdom, not going to be a lot of people here.

Because all unbelievers are going to be judged and cast off the earth. And only surviving mortal believers will remain. So it starts off with not many people. But those who were martyred during the Tribulation are going to be raised and they’re going to have a very special reward.

They’re going to rule with Christ here on earth for a thousand years in glorified bodies. Now, you ought to relate that to the fact that we also are told we’re going to reign with Christ as priest. And my theory is, because this isn’t clear, I don’t know, my theory is, we will rule from the heavenly Jerusalem, which will be super suspended above the earth. They will reign on earth itself with Christ.

That’s just a theory. I don’t know. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection.

Now, here’s where we have really got to get some things straight. There’s a movement today in the Church, one that frankly I was surprised to see it come up, because I thought this movement was killed two or three hundred years ago. But it’s a movement that theologically I would call post-millennialist. Now, that doesn’t mean much to most of you.

But they also call themselves dominionists and they are — I remembered for a while in the early ’90s, they called themselves kingdom now. Now, they’ve gotten to a very sophisticated name, preterist. But all those fancy names means this. They believe there’s not going to be a thousand-year kingdom, that this is all allegorical here.

They believe that most all of prophecy has been fulfilled already in 70 A.D. They believe the book of Revelation almost in its entirety was fulfilled in 70 A.D. And that’s when they say that God rejected his people, Israel, and that is the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He rejected them, abrogated unconditional covenants he made with them, and transferred them to the Church.

That is a very severe theological mistake, one which is going to cause some severe judgment on these people. Because what they’re

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary, and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives.

Thank you so much for standing with me as a watchman on the wall. I pray daily that he will reward your faithfulness and protect and prosper you in these difficult times. Thank you again for being a vital part of my team.