The Millennial Kingdom - Revelation 20:1-7

This we call the Millennial Kingdom, and millennial just is Latin for a thousand, so that's where it comes from. And it's because this is the only place in Scripture where it says that Christ will reign on the earth for a thousand years. But it says so six times, so it's not like it's something obscure. It starts off there. In those seven verses, it starts off with dealing with Satan. He's chained up and put off to the side. It talks about the length of time, because it gives the thousand years six times.

And it gives information about who is resurrected when. And we're going to go into that actually next week, talking about, because there's different people who die at different times and different judgments and different resurrections. And you see this chart in the middle of the front page there? That chart gives the big picture, Christ's first coming, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding at his first coming.

And then the church age, that's the time we live in now, which by the way is a surprise to the Jews. They were not expecting that. The Old Testament doesn't talk about it and Jesus didn't begin to talk about it until the end of the Gospels. And then the rapture when the church is taken up. Of course, we present a pre-tribulation rapture. We think scripture clearly says that.

The seven-year tribulation period, and then the second coming, and then the millennial kingdom, a thousand years of Christ's reign on this earth, and then the end of this present heavens and earth. That's the picture there. You still looking for the chart? Oh, you're just looking through things. Okay.

Now, here is this passage in Revelation 21-7 on the Millennial Kingdom, but in fact it doesn't give a lot of details about it. And so you might wonder, how come not a lot of details? And one of the reasons why not a lot of details is because the rest of the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, does give a lot of detail. Lots and lots of detail.

John Walvert has written a book called the Millennial Kingdom and it's probably about an inch thick. Something like that with all the Old Testament passages talking about the Millennial Kingdom. So let's look at the top of page 2 where it gives the first few verses of chapter 20.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding 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 he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him so that he would not deceive the nations any longer until a thousand years were completed.

After these things, he must be released for a short time." Hi, Craig. Go ahead and grab a handout. These are handouts for the next three weeks, including today. So, for the rest of the month of November. We're quite done with April. So, here is this passage.

This angel places Satan in chains, throws him into the abyss, shuts him in and seals him in, and we don't know the name of the angel. But, you know, you think of Satan as this real powerful creature, But we send an angel to go chain him up, and we don't know the name of the angel. And remember, the term strong angel shows up in the book of Revelation, but God doesn't even send a strong angel. So it's one of the reasons why I think it underscores the fact Christians often overrate Satan's power and influence. Blame everything on Satan. hey, let's go bind Satan, or let's go attack Satan. And when you look at this angel, who is of no particular distinction, grabs Satan and doesn't seem to have any trouble, and puts him in the abyss, and there doesn't appear to be any struggle, any delay, He binds him up, throws him in the abyss.

Now something interesting is he doesn't bind him up just to throw him in the abyss. He binds him up and he goes into the abyss chained up. So he is both restrained by the chain and stuck in this abyss. And it's sealed up. So it's like he's double constrained. But the angel has no trouble at all doing this. No difficulty at all. How many of you have been around Christians who have prayed to bind Satan? Ever seen that? Heard that? Yeah, so have I. All right.

Yeah, make sure this is, as I introduced, this is for this week and the next two weeks following, so through the end of November. And we've got a number of different handouts there, including I addressed the other like mid-tribulation rapture, things like that in there. And so the question you asked last week about King of Kings and Lord of Lords, there's a handout, an extra supplement in there. So you'll need to peel it back to today's handout, which is about for the fourth item back, and that's Revelation 21 through 7, the Millennial Kingdom, dated today here.

Now, we're not given a massive amount of detail about Satan's origins. As a matter of fact, if you read through Scripture, what you find is he just shows up on the scene. And it isn't actually until later in the Bible we get it revealed, yeah, that is Satan. As a matter of fact, The serpent of old, John calls him in chapter 12 and here. He makes it clear that that's Satan.

It's interesting, how come Christ didn't die for Satan's sins? What's that? Okay, yeah, I guess you got your point right. He didn't seem to die for the angel's sins at all. The angels are spiritual creatures like ourselves, but the Lord has dealt with them quite differently. Very interesting how the Lord has dealt with them differently. The angels, as we pointed out in last week's main service, the angels learn from us. They watch us to learn, not necessarily about us, but about God's character by watching us.

So there are things that the angels don't understand. There are things that the Lord has done for us that he's not done for the angels. They don't appear to have any plan of salvation. At some point in time, in the early part of their existence, they were given a window of opportunity and from Revelation chapter 12, a third of them chose to follow Satan.

But salvation seems to be unique to the human race. Very interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Our salvation is by faith. Do the angels have faith? It's not quite the same, is it? Because they see God directly. You're correct. Yeah. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Well, there are the angels right in the presence of God. I wonder, though, if they could have had the faith to believe Him when He had told them that I'm supreme, and they said, we don't believe you. Yeah, but essentially for the angels, they have to disregard what's right in front of them. That's different. If somebody says, well, do you believe Christ died for your sins? There is something that they have to take on faith because, well, I didn't see him do it. What's the evidence of that? So there is something to take on faith.

With the angels, there's God. You're going to follow him? He made you. And a third of them were somehow persuaded through some kind of spiritual insanity. No, I'm going to try to make it on my own. I wonder if he didn't tell them the same thing he told he, that God is holding back on you. Yeah, isn't that interesting? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Were the angels created to serve him? That's a very interesting question. Do you get his question? Were the angels created to serve? And frankly, that's what we see them doing here, don't we? But in our own case, fellowship seems to be more God's priority. Yeah, you're right.

What we saw here in the last half of the tribulation period is what you see illustrated, the unholy trinity. where you had Satan acting in the role as the father. You had the Antichrist acting in the role of the son. And by the way, the word anti in the original Greek can mean either against or it can also mean replacement for. Very interesting here. And then the false prophet acting in the role of the Holy Spirit.

We've seen the Antichrist and the False Prophet are already at this stage in the lake of fire. Satan, at this point, is going to spend a thousand years on paid vacation. He's going to pay for his vacation. And the vacation will be in chains in this abyss. All right.

Now, what's interesting, this angel, where does he come from? Let me look at that passage. Where does the angel come from? What's that? Yeah, you're looking at it down from heaven. That down from heaven phrase is a phrase except for one place. It's John's phrase. He writes it in his gospel. He writes it in the book of Revelation.

And what's interesting is things come down from heaven, but humans are never making anything go up to heaven. So God's the one who takes the action. He's the one who takes the initiative. He's the one who makes things happen. And so that's the picture we clearly get. This is another one of those things where God...

Here's this Satan that everybody's going around binding and afraid of and paranoid about, and God sends an anonymous angel down to just, okay, bind him up, stick him in the abyss, and you're done. No problem at all. And so this is the only binding of Satan that we really have any description of. There isn't any binding of Satan that we're supposed to do. And an angel does it, an anonymous angel, with apparently no trouble at all. There's not the slightest hint that Satan somehow gets the upper hand for a period of time or anything of that sort. So it doesn't make for good drama.

I wonder if he wasn't commanded to sit down and shut up. Yeah, when you look at it, I mean, look at the first couple chapters of Job. What could Satan do without God's permission? He couldn't. Otherwise, Satan wouldn't be there, right? So, the paranoia and the over rating of Satan's power and status is just not justified from Scripture. Okay, he's got a key and he's got this great chain. It's interesting, here's this anonymous angel, he's got a great chain.

I mean, not great like, well that's really great, but big. You know, this thing is massive. I think what you look at it as is Certainly, I think the starting point is to look at literalness. If you look at what it communicates, what it conveys, he tied them up real intensely with great strength and binding power. So ultimately we have to look at what's this telling us and that is that Satan was quite bound. Quite bound.

Then verses 17 and 18 here in Revelation 1-7, When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me, saying, Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last. And Christ continues in Revelation 1-18, And the living one, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. This word for have is to grip it into your hand and have possession of it, not just sitting there casually. I've got it.

And so as you look at it, here he repeats this talking about keys in Revelation 3.7.

The angel of the church in Philadelphia write, He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David. And when we went through that passage, we went into more of what that means. But the idea is, having the keys, we even have an instance in Revelation 9 where Satan is given keys to this abyss. But ultimately, here, having a key is in order to lock Satan into this bottomless pit chain.

Two things to remember about keys. These are bottom two points on page three. The keys are always in the Lord's possession. He is able to hand them off to someone, but it starts off in the Lord's possession where he gives authority to use the keys. And then number two, a key always represents the absolute and unique power to lock or unlock something. Ever lose a key? God doesn't lose a key. Christ doesn't lose a key. It's not of that character. Page four here.

Into the abyss. There are people who used to say that the abyss was my stomach when I was a teenager, but So, this abyss in the Greek is abousas, and a means not or no, and bousas is depth. So, no depth, a bottomless pit. That's where this term bottomless pit comes from, the meaning of this abousas. So, this word is translated bottomless pit or sometimes just by transliteration, abyss. So as much as it might surprise some of us, this word was not originally applied to describe a teenager's stomach.

But it is at least metaphorically appropriate. This abyss, this bottomless pit, is not the same as hell, even though some have created confusion by applying the word hell to that term. Some of the Bible translations even have this translated as hell and it's not the same. It's a confusion. I think the King James may be one that does that translation as hell. That's not the right translation. Because it's not hell, it is a temporary holding place. What's hell? Hell is a place of eternal torment. All this is is a holding place. Hell is for beings who have been judged. These haven't been judged and committed to the lake of fire yet.

Yes. And the reason we know that is because Jesus said that it was created perfect tense. That in the past with a completed past action with ongoing results in the future for Satan and his angels. So, I mean, Jesus gave us the exact answer to your question. Yep.

The answer is, it exists now, and right at this moment, okay, who's in hell? Right now, who's there? Nobody. Hell, right now, is empty. Oh, one other thing, when Satan and all the demons go there, and they will, They won't be in charge of it, and they won't be reigning.

That's another piece of mythology. This will be a place where they will be unhappy to go. The demons at one point in time, you know the demoniac who meets Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee? He says, I am legion. Remember that one? At least one of the Gospel accounts, I think it's Mark, has that demoniac speaking for these demons, and they plead, please don't send us away yet. They're still on planet Earth.

So, hell is empty, and some of these fallen angels, demonic creatures, are occupying this abyss now. Satan will occupy it during the Tribute, excuse me, the Millennial Kingdom, and then the Abyss will be emptied, because they will all be cast into the Lake of Fire, the place that has been prepared. Once those creatures fell, it's like God made it, it's prepared, it's waiting empty, And then when it's ultimately filled with Satan and his angels and other unsaved, it will remain filled forever. But the first occupants will be those coming out of the tribulation period.

So the abyss is not hell. Yes? Wasn't there some that were rescued by captives from hell? Okay, now this is another issue and it's not It's not captives from hell. It gets into a whole different issue we can't quite dig into. And it also goes along with a misconception a lot of people have that Jesus, you ever hear this version of the Apostles Creed, Jesus descended into hell?

Well he didn't. That version of the Apostles' Creed came from a translation error. The Apostles' Creed originally, which by the way none of the Apostles ever heard, was written a couple centuries after they died. So none of the Apostles ever heard the Apostles' Creed.

But basically it said he descended into death. And that got translated a couple different times and by the time it gets back translated and then says he descended into hell. But the Bible doesn't teach that. You translate that death as separation. Well, yeah, that gets to be another question. One of the proponents of Christ descended into hell was John Calvin. And he argued, you know, multiple times for that teaching.

But let's solve the issue right here. What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross? Today you'll be with me where? Paradise. Right? And what did Jesus do when he died? He says, unto the Father he commits his spirit. He wanted to be with the Father. His body was in the grave and his spirit was with the Father. And there that day, the thief on the cross, who also died, went with Christ to be in paradise, not in hell.

I would submit to you that paradise is not the same as hell. I have one more question. When somebody doesn't believe, or when they die, where do they go? What's interesting is Luke 16 has an account, we won't go into it today in any detail, so I'm hitting the high spots.

Luke 16 has an account where at that point in time, which by the way the word paradise was never used until Jesus told the thief, today you'll be with me there, has an account in Luke 16 where those who are saved of Old Testament saints are in one part of this place for the dead and there is a chasm fixed between those people and those who are unsaved And so, it is not absolutely certain, but one of the thoughts is that those on that day that Christ died, those who, of Old Testament saints, were in this place of the dead for those who are saved, were now taken to, because of Christ's crucifixion, to paradise, which would be heaven. The word paradise, which is a Persian word for pleasure garden, only used by Christ on the cross, speaking of the thief. Paul saying, and we'll study this in our study of the first and second Corinthians, Paul saying that he himself was taken up to paradise. The third place it shows up, and we'll see it here in the book of Revelation, and that's the third place it's mentioned. So you and I will be in this paradise. So I have quick answers to a lot of questions. You can try. Okay, so if when you die today, somebody dies and they're in some place, paradise.

Then when the rapture comes, it says the dead will be raised up. If they're already there, how can they be raised up? There are some, what I will call time paradoxes. that show up, and what's interesting is they show up especially for church saints. And that is, here we talk about, has the rapture occurred yet? No. We're still here.

But, on the other hand, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And how do I resolve that? Here is, I will suggest to you an explanation I'll admit that it isn't all based on scripture, but it seems to fit what is revealed. And so I'll give it to you with that caveat.

And that is, at least for church-age saints, our dying does not leave us in time. For example, here's my grandfather. He died in 1987. I know that he was a believer. So my grandfather would be taken up to be with the Lord. Now I look back, that's 22 years ago, right? So in Earth time, 22 years have gone by. Does my grandfather experience those 22 years? I don't think so, because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

It's as if, here's the Apostle Paul, who was beheaded, most likely, in Rome, about 67-68 AD. So he is brought forward, and my grandfather and all the other believers over the centuries of time, and just a few years ago, Hal Malloy, and all brought forward to that time so they don't have this time of twiddling thumbs and, gee, you know, It's a long wait, you know. I hope the coffee is ready. There isn't any of that sense of a time waiting for them.

But those who will be brought up to be with the Lord, taken alive, if you will, raptured alive, will then come and be with the Lord then. So that's why, as you see the explanations, those who are asleep in the Lord would go first, because they've already gone. And those who are raptured alive would then come at that point in time. So that explanation, which I admit is brief, and actually at some point got a little illustration of kind of what that would be like. with those people brought forward in time.

If that model, if that explanation is true and it seems to fit, then what that means is there's nobody waiting around for the rapture to occur that has died. But so far as they're concerned, they're already present with the Lord because they don't experience any limbo time at all. So there's no time element.

Yeah, and that's one thing. When you start looking at time, one of the analogies that I've used in the past is kind of this pen. This is time. Here's the beginning. God created everything. Here's the end of this present heavens and earth. Here about where my thumb is is where the cross and the grave and all that. And here we are somewhere over here. So far as, remember how Jesus, before Abraham, was born? Before that, I am.

So here's God dwelling in the eternal present. To Him, it's all right now. So, we're stuck in this time tunnel. You and I right now, we're stuck in this time tunnel. God's not. He's looking outside of it, and He says, OK, I see Wayne, and Wayne believes.

I have no problem at all taking him and identifying him with Christ here. And that's no difficulty whatsoever. And so also for him, he says, okay, here's the rapture, but here's the Apostle Paul, and here's Verne's grandpa, and here's Hal Molloy, and just take those all right here. Time is no big issue for him.

Anyway, that's kind of how I view it. I realize that not all of that is explicitly stated in Scripture, and so I have to put that caution around those, but I think it's a reasonable understanding and explanation that seems to fit the facts, and if the Lord needs to correct that, He's free to do so. But anyway, good questions.

What we find at the bottom of page four are the various names for Lucifer throughout scripture. Roughly a dozen of them there. John gives in Revelation 20 verse 2 and likewise in chapter 12. Four of those names just so that we're not uncertain at all about who this being is. Page 5. Let's read verses 4, 5, and 6 there. Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus. Who's that? The souls of those who had been beheaded? Who was it? Martyrs from what time period?

From the tribulation. You're exactly right. So tribulation saints, if you will, is what's described here. And because of the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image, that confirms its tribulation period, and had not received a mark on their forehead and on their hand, and they came to life and reigned. They came to life, what does that mean? Resurrection, right? 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.

That, the rest of the dead, because this doesn't address all the resurrections and everything, we'll get to that next week. The rest of the dead refers to, I think, the White Throne Judgment. Anyway, we'll get into that next week. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power. And we'll talk next week about what's this first resurrection, second death. But they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. And the first group he's talking about are specifically tribulation saints. This next group in verse 6 includes us. Alright. So we'll get into the details of that next week. From verse 2 to verse 7, the time period of a thousand years is given six times in this passage.

Given the consistent literal nature of the numbers that John wrote in the Book of Revelation, it's somewhat surprising that so many have presumed to set aside the literalness of the duration of the seven-year tribulation period, as well as the specifically 1,000-year Millennial Kingdom. So he says, 1,000 years, 1,000 years, 1,000 years, 1,000 years, 1,000 years, 1,000 years. But it doesn't mean 1,000 years, right? Well, anyway, that's what they tell you.

But the words millennium and millennial come from the Latin word for a thousand because it refers to a time when Christ will reign over the earth from Jerusalem from David's throne for a thousand years. It's interesting as I'm reading through some Jewish literature, the way they say it is the Messiah will come and reign on the earth from Jerusalem, David's descendant, for a long, long time. thousand years. This passage does not talk about the characteristics of the Millennial Kingdom. So what I've done is to give some quick outlines of what some of those characteristics will be and some of the passages that support that.

The first one that you see there is peace. All wars will cease as the world unifies under the reign of the true king. It's from several passages in Isaiah, some of which we studied in Zechariah 9.10. Joy will come to the whole world, so hence the song that we sing at Christmas time, right? And actually some of our Christmas songs, including Joy to the World, are actually Millennial Kingdom songs. It's really what they're about.

The holiness of God. Christ's Millennial Kingdom will be a holy kingdom. The holiness of the Lord will be manifest in Him as well as in the citizens of His kingdom. The land, the city, the temple, and the subjects will all be holy unto the Lord. The glory of God.

The glory of God will be fully manifested in Christ's Millennial Kingdom, which is one of the reasons The knowledge of God, the teaching ministry of the Lord and the indwelling spirit, at least among Israel, will bring the subjects of the Millennial Kingdom into full knowledge of the Lord's ways.

No sickness or deformity in long life. There will be deaths. There will be death in the Millennial Kingdom, but people will say if somebody dies at age 100, that will be a short life. So it will be a time of not perfection, but substantial restoration and improvement over life as it is now. Economic prosperity.

Lots of description of that. And you see here, we went through some of these passages in Isaiah, but this shows up in a number of them. And by the way, this is the short list. There are other passages too. These are just some that I drew forward. God is present. Another reason to call it the Kingdom of God. And then global godly worship. All the inhabitants of yours will join their hearts and voices in praise and worship to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Want to be a Sabbath? Here's the interesting thing. What we have not talked about here is the New Covenant for the Jews. In answer to your question, here's what's interesting. For us in the church, what is our relationship to the law? By that I mean the religious law, the law of Moses, and similar things. What's our relationship to the law? Here's what's interesting. For us, Christ died on the cross so that we would die to the law, and the Holy Spirit is given to us so that we might live apart from the law.

Now, different thing for the Jews entirely. During this time of the Millennial Kingdom, Passages like Jeremiah 31 31 and others is there's also passage from Isaiah spell this out and Ezekiel but Here's the the thing that's different that Jews will have the new the new covenant for the Jews which will write the law on their heart and they will by the power of the Holy Spirit and know the law perfectly well, and therefore not need any teachers, and they will be able to carry the law out, knowing it without having been taught, and they will live it out by the power of the Holy Spirit. So the answer to your question, will there be a Sabbath? Yes, and the whole earth will be under law. Isn't that very interesting? And the Jews will be empowered to not only know it, but carry it out.

So the ministry of the Holy Spirit in them versus the ministry of the Holy Spirit in us is radically different. Radically different. It's kind of amazing, isn't it? So these two groups are going to live side by side and have a different set of rules?

Well, let's think about this. When you say two groups, Let's think of the character of the group. How will we be present? We will be. But how will we be present during the Millennial Kingdom? Because we're going to be there. Christ is going to be there. We're going to be there. In what mode will we be present? Reigning with Christ. Reigning with Christ. Okay. Good.

And what else? What kind of bodies are we going to have? We're going to have glorified or resurrected bodies different from these. What will be our relationship to Christ? We're going to look at some this morning for the few people that are here. We're going to be looking at some this morning.

The Church is the Bride of Christ, right? And one of the things we looked at in chapter 19 is the marriage supper of the Lamb. We will be the bride of Christ on earth in resurrected bodies and have a different relationship with Him, whereas the Jews who will be living on this earth in bodies like these will be empowered to live out the law and even to know it. We will be with the Lord, not as subject to those same laws at all. but instead we will be the bride of Christ.

And so that's one of the things you'll find. Are they two saved bodies? Yes, but very different in relationship and in the way that the Lord deals with them. Physically, I mean, totally different. You've got physical bodies and then you've got spiritual? Yeah, here we will be. There are spiritual bodies with having with Christ's death, meaning that we have died to the law, they will be there, those Jews who have survived the tribulation period and those descended from those, in physical bodies who will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to know and to live out the law on the earth just an entirely different character between the church and the Jews living during the millennium. This is the old earth. It hasn't been burnt up yet. This is the old earth. This is the one we're standing on now.

Yeah. One system isn't contrary to the other system. They're both glorifying God. They're both glorifying God. And some people are puzzled by this. As a matter of fact, we've had people who have actually kind of pounded on me, saying, oh, these are all the same. No, they're not. They're quite different.

Here is the Jew in the Millennial Kingdom empowered to live out the law, knowing it, whereas we in the church, Christ died on the cross so that we could be separated from the law. And here's Paul writing to the church at Rome, You're under grace, not under law. I mean, he repeats it in chapter 6. So he says it twice.

We operate very differently as a body, and yet both are saved. And here's the other thing. I would compare it to a couple of different things. The comparison might be helpful. Number one, it might be, for example, there are different kinds of angels. I'm talking about Seraphim and Cherubim and even these four living creatures. Different kinds of angels, and yet all angels, right? It also has some comparison, for example, with the idea of harmony.

Think also of the different kinds of things that God made. Did he make the stars? Are they phenomenal? Yeah. Didn't he also make little tiny microscopic things that only in recent times in Earth's history and human history have come to discover? And yet, with the vast differences, it all glorifies God. And I think that's really ultimately what it comes to. God is glorified in the different kinds of saints and beings that he's brought about.

So, real interesting. Yeah, the Lord doesn't just make us all cookie-cutters in the same uniform, but kind of comparable to the idea of harmony, the idea of variety that He puts out in nature, all that variety glorifies Him. Answer your question, more or less? Yeah, that was amazing.

So, anyway, we're on page 7 here. What was not revealed in the Old Testament, however, was the existence of the Church and the Church's presence in and involvement in the Millennial Kingdom. We have a couple of handouts that I gave you and we'll take a look at next time. We will be the Bride of Christ, present with Christ, ruling and reigning with Him, but not one of His subjects, and of a different group than the resurrected saints of other groups and ages. Now, here's something. One of the gifts that we'll be studying in 1 Corinthians that God has given to the church body, and it's the Holy Spirit who carries out that gift, is the gift of teaching.

But for the Jews during the Millennial Kingdom, the Holy Spirit empowers them differently, and one of the ways that the Holy Spirit empowers them is they won't need a teacher. Do you realize in the Millennial Kingdom there will be no rabbis? The Jews will have no rabbis. Why? They won't need a teacher. No more rabbis.

How about that? So then in verse 7, when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison. So verse 7 repeats this point that was brought up in verse 3. It introduces this brief period of time. We don't know how brief is brief, but brief in which Satan instigates one last rebellion, which the Lord terminates with fire. After that, Satan is cast in the lake of fire to remain there forever. Let me ask you a question. Why would the Lord have this last episode of Satan released?

It doesn't seem like kind of... I mean, why bother? It isn't going to work, is it? What gets accomplished with that? Pardon? A reminder? What do you mean by that? Okay, a reminder. Think about this. Right now, who are our three enemies, spiritual enemies? We've got Satan, and the world, and what else? The flesh. The world, the flesh, and the devil is sometimes the way it's said. But those three enemies, now let's go through it. In the Millennial Kingdom, are you going to be dealing with Satan? No. We just saw that in this verse. He's off the list.

Are you going to have the world there? Yes? No? Yes? It's going to be different. Who is reigning? Christ. Right now, who is the God of this world? Where's he going to be? Out of the picture. Right? So what you'll have is Christ reigning. And right now, think of it, if some guy who commits a crime, he might not get caught. Or he might get into the court system and they have to plea bargain with him or let him off because there's not enough evidence. Well, what do you do when the one who is ruling the earth knows everything, and he even knows what's in everybody's heart? Are you going to have a lack of evidence? No. Are you going to get somebody off on a technicality? Not going to happen. Not going to happen.

So, of the enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, the only one you'll be dealing with is the flesh. And so essentially what you're going to find is that there will be some consequence to having even the flesh there. People will pay the price for that. But now you let Satan back in the picture and what happens? It all goes to pot fast. But the Lord doesn't let that exist. It's a demonstration that, you know, people say, well the devil made me do it. Well, you had a problem without the devil. You know? You had a problem without him having his direct influence and being the God of this world. And that problem was there. And all that has to happen is he comes back in an instant and all of a sudden we get instant rebellion. happening. It will be a demonstration that people will want to blame somebody else. And no, you have the problem there all the time.

And in reality, people need the Lord. But we can't do without Him. And the world will go to pot without the Lord. I think we're done with timelines. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage. Certainly lots of questions to be asked and yet to be answered. And yet, too, we see some things clearly revealed. We thank you for that. Thank you for the hope that we have in you. Thank you for the assurance that, as Paul put it, forever we'll be with the Lord. Thank you for that. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.