Revelation 20:1-3

Revelation chapter 20, I want to read the entire chapter. We’ll be focusing on the first three verses, though, of the chapter this morning. Revelation chapter 20, beginning with verse 1, and I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years be fulfilled. And after that, he must be loosed a little season. and I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given under them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God and which worshipped not or and had not worshipped the beast neither his image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such, the second death hath no power. But they shall be priest of God and of Christ. and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. He shall go out to deceive the nations, which are in the four quarters of the earth. Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sand of the sea. sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and came past the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devired them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. and I saw a great white throne. Him that sat on it, from whose faith, efface, the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened, and another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of life. far. What a majestic passage this section of scripture is. The matter of the millennium, and that is, the millennium is a Latin word for 1,000 years. The matter of the millennium mentioned here only in Revelation 20, you don’t find anywhere else, has become, I think, an essential part of the eschatology of today’s church. Many doctrinal errors have been associated with this particular period of a thousand years, and much confusion reigns with regard to the interpretation of Revelation chapter 20. Your understanding of Revelation all depends on how you view the thousand years that are mentioned in this chapter 20. However, there is disagreement regarding almost every feature associated with a thousand years, such as the meaning of Satan being bound a thousand years. The character of Christ reign for a thousand years. Is it a literal, earthly reign of Christ’s reign of Christ, or is it a heavenly reign of Christ? The door of God. of the thousand years. Is this a literal thousand years? Or is this a figurative number for a very long period of time? The beginning of the thousand years, is this await future fulfillment, or is it already being realized right now? So all these questions, we can’t even agree on what the thousand years mean. So all these things are questions that come up. Now, in association with the millennium, there are three major views of eschatology. We have, first, what I’ll call the pre-millennial view, this is probably one of the most popular views, that Christ’s second coming precedes, pre-millennial, pre-thousenium, pre-thousand-year, precedes the the thousand years are mentioned here. Let me just give you a quick rundown. Supposedly, when Christ comes, he’s going to personally reign on earth in the city of Jerusalem. His reign, according to the pre-millanalyst, will provide a golden age on earth of peace and righteousness for all nations. Satan will be bound by Jesus Christ for a thousand years. while the Lord reigns over this earth with a rod of iron. The saints who rule with him will be the righteous, who have glorified bodies when Christ returned. Because they have several returnings of Christ. They actually have several comings. And so when Christ comes here, at the first, there will be some glorified bodies. However, this kingdom is mixed. They’re going to have glorified people and non-glorified people in it. They will have saved people in it and lost people in it. They’ll still be sin and death, according to the pre-millanualists during this thousand-year period. A physical rebuilt temple will occur, and they’ll have memorial animal sacrifices during this period of time. They’ll still be marriages and children being born and physical. decline, sickness, aging, and death. Satan then will be given one last chance at the end of the thousand years and he’ll be loosed. And he will succeed in deceiving a great multitude of people. But this rebellion will be supernaturally crushed by Christ. And finally, there will be what is spoken of at the end of the chapter here, the Great White Throne Judgment, followed by Chapter 21, the New Heavens, in the New Earth. But that’ll be a thousand years after Christ is ranked. In other words, the Great White Throne judgment is a thousand years after Christ returns according to the pre-millanalysts. And same with the new heavens in the New Earth. Any questions about the pre-millanialist view? All your dispensationalists are pre-millanialists. There are some historical pre-millanualists as well. But this would be probably the most common view you’re going to discover. The second view is the post-millennial view. Post-Menal view. Post, meaning after, that Christ will come, his second coming, follows this this thousand years of reigning that takes place. The most pre-millennial, or post-millennials believe that it’s going to be some type of golden, future golden age in which the whole earth will be Christianized or at least brought under the rule of Christian principles, like Christians controlling the government and then setting the rules by which they will have to live. While Satan is bound, peace and righteousness will prevail on earth, at least outwardly, all the nations will worship Jesus Christ. I say at least outwardly because it’ll be hypocritical worship in some cases out of fear of maybe some earthly punishment, like no rain as we get in, you know, Zechariah 14 or something like that, taken in a more literal sense. It’ll be hypocritical worship, but they’ll be subdued, and the Christians will dominate at this period. So post-millanists look for some type of worldwide mass revival or conversion of people. The Christian ideas will be imposed upon the nations and nations will be converted. Some will argue for both of those views. And this will be before Christ returns. And then after a thousand years, of this glorious age, and some take that literally, and some take it more generally, as a long period of time. After this lengthy period of time, Satan will be loosed, launched his final attempt to destroy the church. Christ will return, foil his efforts, and this will be followed by the general resurrection and the new heavens and the new earth. Any questions about the post-millennial view? Okay. The third view, is the awe millennial view. Aw, meaning no or non-millenium. No special golden age. Now, to avoid confusion, awe-millennialism is not really a good term to use because we actually do believe in a millennium. We just don’t believe in some golden age or some special age. In other words, we would view this present time as the millennium. Right now, the all-millanists would say this is the, we believe, we’re in a realized millennium. It extends from Christ’s first coming here, and basically toward the end of his first coming, all the way through to his second coming. And we would say that period of time is this millennium that’s spoken up here. It’s not a, literal, earthly reign. Christ’s binding of Satan is limited to the deception of the nations and not all his activities. Specifically, Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, has broken Christ’s hold on the Gentile nations. And with the Great Commission that he gave out, the gospel goes out, people are being converted from all different nations. So we would change. take those passages in the Old Testament that seem to say nations are coming to Christ. We take that in that sense that people from those nations, from all nations, will come to know the Lord. Not that the whole, everybody in the nation would be converted, but that we would see people from all nations coming to know the Lord, these heathen nations, and brought to know Christ. In other words, it would be a world. kingdom in scope that Christ possesses, not limited to Palestine area and the Jews, but it’s worldwide. However, Satan will be loosed, and there will be a final rebellion and an attempt to destroy the Church of Christ, which is spoken of, I believe, in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, when the man of sin comes on the scene. And there’s this great deception. that’s spoken of. We’ll try to connect these passages up. There’ll be a great falling away, a final apostasy. However, Christ will return, in flaming fire, and crush all his enemies. Satan then will be cast in the lake of fire. And there will be a general resurrection and a final judgment issuing in, then, of the new heavens. earth, devoid of any sorrow, death, or curse. I will be taking what I consider to the correct view of this passage, which is the all-millennial view of this passage of scripture. Having dealt with the beast and the false prophet, we see their end in chapter 19. John is given another vision. This vision gives us the final end of Satan. The ultimate enemy of the Church of Christ. He’s called the dragon here, or Satan. Then I saw. Now this only speaks of the order in which John saw these visions. And we have seen all along, some of these visions overlap, and this vision overlaps somewhat with chapter 19. For Christ to rule over the nations with a rod of iron. so forth. For him to rule over them requires them to be brought in submission in some sense. And so Satan has to be bound for the gospel to go out in order for that occur. And here’s how that occurs. We have in chapter 20, Satan being restricted to that end. Any questions about the introduction here to the chapter? So that gives you an idea of, you know, what the kind of things we’re going to nuances we’re going to look at as we go through the chapter. You get an idea of the three views of this chapter. Now, this morning, I want to look at Satan being bound here, the first three verses. We have the binding angel mentioned in verse 1, and an angel came down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. Let me just stop there. There’s much debate over who this angel is. is he just an angel? Is he Michael the archangel? Is he Christ? Well, not to be extremely dogmatic here, but I think that this heavenly messenger is indeed the Lord Jesus Christ, the angel of the covenant. None of the created angels, I think, are powerful enough to do this. I mentioned this. because remember Michael’s dispute with the devil, he doesn’t rebuke, he doesn’t, he just rebukes him and he doesn’t do anything to him. In Daniel chapter 10, the holy angels need help in battling some of the evil angels in Daniel chapter 10. And so the powerful fallen ones seem to be restrictive with some of the holy angels. But here, this is angel with great power, grabs hold of the dragon and puts him in the pit. Christ is the one who has all the keys in the book of Revelation. He is the key of hell and death. He is the key of David that openeth and no man shutteth and no man open of according to 118 of this book in chapter 3 and verse 7. And it’s interesting. In chapter 9, you’ll notice in chapter 9, you’ll notice in chapter 9 The angel has to be given the key to the bottomless pit. The fifth angel sounds and a star falls and to him was given, that’s Satan is given the key to the bottomless pit there. Here, this angel has the key. Now, what’s, I think, important in connection with this and what convinced me to say this is Christ, is it’s revealed in the Gospels that the one who binds the strong man is the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s look at this. Look at Matthew chapter 12, if you would. Matthew chapter 12 and verses 26 to 28. Jesus says here, if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his can be. kingdom stand. And if I, by Belsabab, cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come unto you. Or else, how can one enter into a strong man’s house, spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then he will spoil us house. And so we have this idea here that Christ is going to bind the strong man in order to spoil his house. In other words, to take from his kingdom, these people have been in darkness all these years among the Gentiles and place him in his kingdom. Spoil him. Take away his goods, so to speak. So Christ has a great chain in his hand. And he does the binding here. Now, of course, the Lord does not bind a spiritual being like Satan with a literal chain, with iron or bronze or something of that nature. That’s impossible to do. But God is accommodating our understanding, and he’s using visual image of a material chain to help you grasp his meaning. Christ is going to limit Satan’s area of influence. Stop him from deceiving the nations as he’s done for millenniums. It’s sort of like putting a dog on a chain and keeping him from going certain places. He has a circumference or something he can go in, and that’s it. So Christ plans here on plundering Satan’s house of the souls that he has kept in bondage for all these souls. years, particularly the Gentile nations who have been wedded to their false worship for thousands of years. That is going to be broken. So we have the binding angel here. Any questions on that? All right. Let’s go to the description of the one bound. We find that in verse 2. And he laid all on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan. And bound. him a thousand years. The dragon, as we saw from chapters 12 and then 13, is a monstrous being before whom man is helpless. It speaks of the cruelty of Satan. He’s the old serpent. Here we have Satan’s cunning cunning deception being brought to light. He’s old and the sense that he’s been at this all away from the Garden of Eden when he deceived Eve in Genesis Chapter 3. He’s been doing this a long time. He’s the devil. The devil is the accuser who has malicious intentions toward the people of God. He’s the accuser of the brother we saw in chapter 12 in verse 10. And he’s called Satan. Satan means adversary. He’s opposed. God, he’s opposing God’s opposing God’s people. Any questions about the description here of the one bound? All right, the place of the binding is said here in this verse to be the bottomless pit. Excuse me, verse 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more to the a thousand years be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season. This abyss here is a deep hole. A bottomless shaft with a door or a lid of some sort on the top of it which must be opened. We saw it in chapter 9 it had to be open for the demonic angels to come out and be loosed. Well, this door can be unlocked according to chapter 9, verse 2, and according to our chapter here, it can be locked and it can be sealed. Now, seal in scripture means that the door of the pit is going to remain tightly closed until Christ opens it again. In other words, no one can disturb it. with this thousand. years. The implication is that one throne in this pit would fall continuously and be in a helpless state. Now Christ hurls Satan into this bottomless pit, rendering him helpless. He cannot do as he pleases. He’s confined in this one area. The place of the binding. Any questions about that? The limitations of the binding. Verse 3 is that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years be fulfilled. Now notice, this binding does not mean a total restriction of all Satan’s activities. We’re often ridiculed by pre-millanialists say, well, the Satan is bound, and how come all the deception is going on and things that are happening today in our world and Satan seems to be alive and well and active. We didn’t say He wasn’t going to be actively going about seeking whom he may devine. We’re saying he’s bound in one area that he cannot go out and deceive the nations as he has done for these thousands of years up to this point. This is a symbolic picture limiting his power in this one specific area. So Satan is still going to go about. He’s still going to attempt people to sin. He’s still going to stir apostility toward the people of God. But he’s still going to will be totally helpless to keep the nation’s ignorance and under his thumb. So Christ is going to plunder Satan’s kingdom by bringing to salvation people from all these different nations that once worshipped false idols and images and all these different gods. Until New Testament times, until the Great Commission, the Gentiles as a whole were in darkness. They sat under the Breast. deception of Satan for all these years. That power is broken. So Satan’s binding ends this dominion over the nations. The gospel is spread throughout all the world. We see the prophecy is fulfilled in this also. Because Scripture says this in Psalm 72, verses 8 and 11. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river until the ends of the earth, and all nations shall serve him, speaking of the Messiah. Or, in Micah 4.2. And many nations shall come and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Now that speaks of the great. commission, starting at Jerusalem and going out into all the world. And people are brought into the kingdom. There are many passages we can look at. Those two will suffice. I think we have an idea of what these passages would teach. So this is the limitation of the binding. Any other, any questions about the limitation? All right, we have another area that cover, and that is the length of the binding. The length of the binding. The length of the binding. is 1,000 years. Now in scripture, the number 1,000 is often used in a general sense. It’s not always used as a specific number or an exact amount. It’s a symbolic number, a round number, if you would, for an infinite period, an eon whose duration it would be folly to attempt to compute. it is used to convey this idea of a countless number of years. You remember in the giving of the law that the number of generations in which God keeps his covenant is said to be a thousand years in Deuteronomy 7.9. Now, is it just limited to a thousand years that he keeps his covenant? No, but the idea is he keeps his covenant. Long, long time. He always keeps it. The number of years, or excuse me, a number of hills upon which the cattle, God owns cattle, in Psalm 50, 10 are said to be a thousand hills. Dare we say that God doesn’t own the cattle on the thousand and one hill? No, it’s just, it’s infinite in number. The number of enemies, that one Israelite shall chase, according to Joshua 2310, is a thousand. Does that mean in a single, Israelite, couldn’t chase 1,200? But an infant number could be chased. The expression, a thousand years, suggest a long period of time. Now, I want you to look with me at Ecclesiastes. I can look all these passages up, but for time’s sake, I’m not, and I think you’re familiar with these passages, anyhow. But this one in Ecclesiastes may be helpful to us. The book of Ecclesiastes chapter 6, verses 3 to 6. Ecclesiastes chapter 6 versus 3 to 6. Pay close attention to verse 3 and verse 6. If a man begat 100 children and live many years so that the days of his life be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover, he hath not seen the sun nor known anything. This hath more rest than the other. Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told. yet hath he seen no good, do not all go to one place. Now notice in verse 3, he talks about a person living many years, or the days of his life being many. But then when he gets to verse 6, he talks about a thousand years, or even twice a thousand years. So that the many is referring to the same period, the thousand years, or twice tall, 2000. So that there’s a connection between the idea of a multitude and the thousand years. Now this thousand year period began during our Lord’s victory over Satan at the cross, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, and now the reign of the Lord. Look with me at Colossians chapter 2 in verses 3 to 15. if you would. Colossians chapter 2, verses 13 to 15. In you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven all your trespasses, blotting out the handwriting the ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers he made us, show of them openly, triumping over them in it. And so we have the idea of the victory over Satan and over the powers of evil by the cross. Look at John chapter 12, if you would. John chapter 12 versus, I’m going to read 20 to 22, that’s a lot to read here. Let me just pick up with the last few verses here. talks about verse 31. He says, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of the world be cast out. And if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This passage, the Greeks have come to Christ and ask him, and they wanted to see him. And Christ talks to them about the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying, and then how productive it is. So if he’s lifted up, he will draw all men to himself, he says. All the nations, including these Greeks, you see, outside of the boundaries of Israel. And they say, in this is the judgment of this world and the prince of this world being cast out. In other words, not able to control these nations like he used to. And then if you would, look at Daniel chapter 7. We’ve looked at this before. I’m just going to do this quite briefly here. This is the passage where we read, I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the son of man, came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. Now here we have the resurrected Christ ascending up to heaven, and there was given him dominion and glory in a kingdom that all people’s nations and languages should serve him and so forth. He’s got an everlasting kingdom. Versus 13 and 14 of Daniel chapter 7. And so we have the resurrected Christ, and he gets the dominion, he gets the kingdom. And the kingdom is going to go into all nations, and so that involves Satan being bound so these nations are not deceived anymore. So the thousand years are being realized right now. It is the period of time from Christ’s first coming here, and what he did then, especially at the end, to his second coming. All this period of time, Christ is gathering people from all these different nations. Now, I want you to notice how Peter classifies this waiting period prior to Christ’s second coming as a thousand years. Look at 2 Peter. This is the last passage I’ll have us look at. Because I have to end here. 2 Peter chapter 3. If you have the time, you can look at all nine verses here, but I’ll focus on the second part of this passage. 2nd Peter chapter 3. It’s about the second coming of Christ. And, you know, where’s the promise of his coming and so forth? he says here in verse 8 but beloved be not ignorant of this one thing that one day with the Lord is one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but as long suffering to usward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance where is the promise of his coming. Well, God may wait a thousand years before he comes, right? Because with him an infinite amount of time is nothing one day. But the Lord was not going to forget his promise. He’s going to send Christ back. He’s long-suffering right now toward his elect, not willing that any of them should perish, but that all of them should come to repentance. And when they’re all come to repentance at that point, he will send Christ. But notice, that Peter calls this period of time. From Christ’s death to his second coming, he classifies it as a thousand years. I suggest you it’s the same thousand years that John is talking about in Revelation chapter 20. So here we have Satan bound. We have the angel, the one bound, the place, the limitation, and the length. And I have to stop. Any questions at the end of this? All right, let’s close with prayer.