Revelation 20 Explained: Satan Bound & the Thousand-Year Reign

Well, tonight we're in Revelation chapter 20, believe it or not.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

We're going to be opening up with verses 1 through 10.

And I want to let you know, because everybody asks for a deeper dive on Sunday

night in the book of Revelation.

And as you know, each section, what we've tried to do is we do like a bird's eye view to start with.

Okay, we come at it with the big picture approach.

And then we'll dive into subsection, so to speak, and we'll look through it closer. Okay.

And so that's what the approach we're still taking in Revelation 20 verses one

through 10, and really talking about the coming earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I shared that with you from this big picture, deep dive type thing,

because there's some things tonight that I'll be honest with you,

unless you're really familiar with theology and those type things,

these may not be familiar terms.

Some of them you hear tonight, but we're going to do our best to talk about

it and about the end times here.

So we'll start out Revelation 21 through 10.

It says, 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 and sealed it over him so that he would

not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed.

After these things, he must be released for a short time.

Then I saw thrones and they set 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 and because of the word of God.

And those who had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received

the mark on their forehead and on 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.

When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison

and he 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.

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.

Father God, I pray you bless your reading of your word tonight.

Help us as we look at this, Lord, help us to understand.

Help us to get what you need us to tonight in Jesus' name.

I want y'all tonight to just imagine a world dominated by righteousness and

goodness, a world where there's no injustice, where no court ever renders an unjust verdict.

And where everybody's treated fairly. Imagine a world where what is true,

what's right, what's noble actually marks every aspect of life.

Think about it, including interpersonal relations, right?

Commerce, education, you just name it, and government.

Imagine a world where there is complete, total, enforced, and permanent peace,

where joy abounds and good health prevails, so much so that people live for hundreds of years.

Imagine a world where the curse is removed, where the environment is restored

to the pristine purity of the Garden of Eden,

where peace reigns even in the animal kingdom so that the wolf will dwell with

the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the young goat and the calf and

the young lion and the fatling together and a little boy will lead them,

as it said in Isaiah chapter 11, verse 6.

Isaiah 11:6

Imagine a world tonight ruled by a perfect, glorious ruler who instantly and firmly deals with sin.

Humanly speaking, that description may seem far-fetched, right?

I mean, a utopian fantasy that could never be reality, right?

Yet it accurately describes the conditions during the future earthly kingdom

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The restored and radically reconstructed earth of the millennial kingdom will

constitute paradise regained, if you will.

The thousand-year reign of the Savior over the earth is the divinely planned

and promised culmination of all redemptive history.

And it's also the realization, y'all, of the hope of all the saints of all the ages.

The millennial kingdom is called by many names in scripture.

In fact, in Matthew 19, verse 28, I believe, Jesus calls it the regeneration.

Matthew 19:28

Acts 3, 19 actually describes the kingdom as times of refreshing.

And verse 21 of that chapter calls it the period of restoration of all things.

It almost reminds me a little bit, Sharon, I was studying this,

a little bit of the return of the king,

you know, times of refreshing, the period of restoration of all things,

all that, and just some of the illusions that were made there from Tolkien in

those movies, Lord of the Rings.

But the apostle Paul refers to it in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 10,

Ephesians 1:10

as an administration suitable to the fullness of the times.

So the Bible's teaching as a whole, the kingdom, it's not confined to just the

New Testament, by the way.

The kingdom is an important theme throughout all of Scripture.

It's the goal towards which all of redemptive history, if you will,

progresses towards that.

In fact, in the words of John Bright, theologian, he said this, The Bible is one book.

Had we to give that book a title, we might with justice, he said,

call it the book of the coming kingdom of God.

Because that's what scripture is pointing towards. And among the many Old Testament

passages that actually speak of the earthly kingdom, y'all, there's so many passages.

You probably remember a lot of these from stuff you've studied in Sunday school

and whatnot, but Deuteronomy speaks of it.

2 Samuel, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel,

Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, just to name a handful there.

God's kingdom may be broadly defined as the sphere, really, in which he reigns.

He reigns. And in its universal, its eternal sense, God's kingdom really encompasses

everything that exists, right?

Because God is what? He is the sovereign ruler over all, all of his creation.

David actually declared that truth in Psalm chapter 103 verse 19 when the psalmist

Psalms 103:19

said the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all.

So historically, God has mediated his rule on earth through his people.

Think about it. Let's go back to Genesis.

First, through Adam and Eve, right? And then Abel, Seth, Enoch,

Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua,

the judges of Israel, including Samuel, and the kings of Israel and Judah.

In fact, in the present era, God mediates his rule politically through human

government, it says in Romans 13, verses 1 through 7.

Romans 13:1–7

And spiritually through the church. It says in Acts 20 and in Romans 14 and Colossians 1, right?

So in the millennial kingdom, the political and the religious elements of God's temporal earthly rule.

Will be reunited in who? In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus reigning. And if you take taking the text of Revelation chapter 20 here

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

and the numerous other biblical passages that actually speak about the kingdom of God,

about this earthly kingdom, at face value, this would lead to what you would

call a pre-millennial view of eschatology.

Big words, okay?

Pre-millennial, and eschatology is just the end times, study of the end times, right?

So a pre-millennial view, that is, what we mean by that, that Christ will return

and then establish a literal kingdom on the earth, which will last for a literal thousand years.

But there are two other major views of the millennium.

In addition to premillennialism is what they would call that view, what I hold to, right?

Postmillennialism and amillennialism is the other views.

I want to briefly try to explain these tonight, just so you have this, it's important.

Postmillennialism is in some ways opposite of pre, as you would guess.

Premillennialism teaches that Christ will return before pre, right, the millennium.

Postmillennialism teaches that he'll return at the end of the millennium.

Premillennialism teaches that the period immediately before Christ's return

will be the worst in human history.

That's what we've been talking about. That's what we've been teaching from the book of Revelation.

Post-millennial, I'm getting twisted.

Post-millennialism teaches that before his return will come the best period in history.

You're like, where do people get this, right? So that Christ will return at

the end of a long golden age of peace and harmony, in other words.

And most post-millennial, I can't even say it, post-millennial, I'll just say that.

Most of those dudes deny that the millennium will last for 1,000 actual years, okay?

They basically arbitrarily view that that number is just symbolic of a long

period of time. They read symbolism in that 1,000 years if they hold the post-millennial view.

And when you stop and you think about that,

the millennium to which that post-millennial view looks forward to is basically

a golden age of prosperity during this present, if you will,

dispensation that we're living in.

And that's just the church age, okay, right now where we're at the church age.

And so that golden age, according to post-millennialism,

will result basically from the spread of the gospel throughout the world and

the conversion of the majority of human race to Christianity they hold.

And so Christ will return to a truly Christianized world, if you will.

So post-millennialism, thinking about that, the millennial kingdom,

according to post-millennialists, will be established by the church,

not by the personal intervention of Jesus Christ.

That's what that view holds to. So if you hear, are you premillennial,

postmillennial, or amillennial? We haven't talked about that one too much yet.

But yeah, that's what they hold to. And also believe that Christ,

nor will he reign personally on earth during the millennium,

but rather through his church he's going to reign.

That's what that view would hold, the postmillennialist.

In fact, in keeping with the generally optimistic views, if you will,

of those eras, post-millennialism actually flourished.

Can you think of some times in our history, in Earth's history,

where it would have flourished, or you know it flourished? Maybe you've studied this.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, that view flourished.

The impact of the Enlightenment, Brother Ronnie will think about all these things

because of history, the Industrial Revolution, the rapid pace of scientific discovery.

Darwin's theory of evolution, all of that actually convinced many that society

was actually progressing inevitably toward a utopia, so to speak.

And so they had a very optimistic view, and that optimistic view was in harmony

with post-millennialism, which also teaches, by the way, that the world is going

to get better and better, though by different means.

But the horror that was experienced in our past history, you think about it,

of the First World War, the moral decadence of those roaring 20s,

the hard times of the Great Depression, right?

The madness of the Nazi slaughter of the Jews, right, of Hitler and all that,

and the worldwide catastrophe of the Second World War brought an end to that

naive optimism that things are going to get better and better, right?

That had prevailed, by the way, before World War I.

Post-millennialism, accordingly, had also declined in popularity here.

In fact, in recent years, though, there's been a resurgence of that view.

You may have heard some of these actual sectors in religious circles,

but liberation theology is resurged there.

Kingdom theology, you might hear it that way.

Theonomy, those type things. But if you stop and think about it,

the name amillennialism is a little bit misleading in that name because it implies

that, you know, it implies that amillennius did not believe in a millennium, which they do.

But what is true when it, when it is true that they reject the concept of an

earthly millennium, especially one that is actually a millennium,

what I mean by that is an actual thousand years in duration.

Amillennialists do believe in a kingdom. They believe the Old Testament prophecies

of the Messiah's kingdom are being fulfilled right now, today, in this world we live,

either by the saints regaining or reigning, I should say, with Christ in heaven

or spiritually, not literally, by the church on earth.

So an Amillennialist would also apply some of those Old Testament prophecies to this eternal state.

So far from disbelieving in the millennium, these amillennialists,

they actually believe we're in it right now.

As far as the thousand years of Revelation 20 is concerned that we are reading

tonight and studying, they would hold to the view that we are in it right now.

That was the view they would hold.

And so, but there's absolutely, I want y'all to know this tonight,

there is absolutely no exegetical reason. that just means getting it from the

scriptures, exegeting the scriptures, getting our information from the text.

No reason or source for that conclusion and no warrant for abandoning the historical

grammatical hermeneutic.

And remember, that was a big word I shared the other week.

Hermeneutics just really means the study of interpreting the Bible correctly.

The science of interpreting scripture, right?

In a nutshell, I know some people hear that word hermeneutics. Herman who?

But hermeneutics, so it abandons that historical, grammatical,

all that interpretive things that we have studied throughout the ages and we get from Scripture.

But it only abandons it when they're trying to interpret prophecy.

And so it's really a crazy act, I think, by some of those that do this, because they,

They actually base that presupposition there on that, and there's no reason

to deny a literal 1,000 years as the duration of the kingdom of Christ on earth. None whatsoever.

And I'm gonna talk about this more in just a moment, but nowhere,

I'll just say this quickly, nowhere in Revelation is there any number that's

ever symbolic all through Revelation.

And I'll talk about that in a moment,

Theologian Robert L. Thomas wrote this. I want you to listen to what he said here.

He said, if the writer wanted a very large symbolic number.

Why did he just not use 144,000 or 200 million or 10,000 times 10,000 or thousands

of thousands or an incalculable large number?

The fact is that no number in Revelation is verifiably a symbolic number.

On the other hand, non-symbolic usage of numbers is the rule.

So he's telling you, basically, all through Revelation, that's the rule.

There's no symbology in the numbers that are used.

And so he says here that it requires multiplication of a literal 12,000 by a

literal 12 to come up with 144,000 in chapter 7, verses 4 through 8.

He says the churches, seals, trumpets, and bowls are all literally seven in number.

The three unclean spirits that's talked about in chapter 16 are actually three in number.

The three angels connected with the three last woes in chapter 8,

they add up to a total number of three angels, right?

The seven last plagues amount to exactly seven in the book of Revelation.

The equivalency of the 1,260 days,

remember what that adds up to three and

a half years right and so basically he's

saying it necessitates a non symbolic understanding of both numbers so the 12

apostles and the 12 tribes of Israel are literally 12 he said the seven churches

are in seven literal cities yet confirmation of a single number in revelation

as symbolic is impossible.

And he based that on proper hermoneutics and study in Scripture and the rules

that we use to interpret passages of Scripture, right?

Nowhere in Revelation is any number used symbolically. So basically,

you know where we're going, right?

Why in the world would this thousand-year reign in the millennium be symbolic?

Because it's just not a precedent at all.

In fact, it's highly doubtful that any symbolic number would be repeated,

You know how many times it's said in Revelation about the thousand year?

Six times, y'all, in the book of Revelation, as 1,000 is here.

For the first century and a half after the close of the New Testament era,

if you will, the church really was largely at that time pre-millennial.

And among the church fathers of that period who actually believed in a literal

thousand year, earthly millennium, which is the view that I hold to because

it's what I see in Scripture by properly exegeting the text, right?

But some of those were Papias, he was the disciple of the Apostle John,

these will be familiar names to some of you, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr,

Tertullian, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas.

That premillennial consensus of all of those, all of those, was challenged by

the members of the Alexandrian school, most notably Origen.

You've probably heard of him if you've been in any theology classes before.

They advocated an allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture.

In other words, you know, thinking about everything is symbolic, allegorical.

You probably, what problem do you see with that? If that was true,

if you had an allegorical approach to scripture, what would be the big problem with that?

You'd have many, many, many interpretations of what it means.

It'd be crazy, wouldn't it? Crazy.

And so, but those who held to that approach, the famous historian Eusebius also

rejected a literal earthly millennium, the noted Bible scholar Jerome.

But it was the influence of Augustine, the greatest theologian of the early

church, that actually ensured that amillennialism would dominate the church for centuries.

Amillennialism was the view of the reformers, if you didn't know that.

And today, most scholars in the reformed tradition are amillennialists.

Most of them are. And at the heart of the debate over the millennial views is

the issue, and I come back to this word again.

Y'all going to sing this one in the shower of our hermeneutics.

All sides of the debate actually agree that interpreting Old Testament prophecy

literally leads naturally to what view do you think?

Pre. You got it?

All millennialist Floyd E. Hamilton, he actually acknowledged that.

He came out and just said it. He said, now we must frankly admit that a literal

interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies gives us just such a picture

of an earthly reign of the Messiah that the premillennial is pictures.

So he's saying if you interpret it literally, that's it, if you take it literally.

And we have others who agree with that assessment as well.

We had one that actually said, I believe it was Boatner that said,

it's generally agreed that if the prophecies are taken literally,

they do foretell a restoration of the nation of Israel in the land of Palestine

with the Jews having a prominent place in that kingdom and ruling over other nations.

So in light of all that tonight, and yes, I told you, I know we're kind of deep in the bushes, right?

Theologically speaking. But all of that, the question that naturally arises

is, why not take the Old Testament prophecies of the millennium literally?

Those who actually reject that interpretation, that literal interpretation,

argue that the New Testament appears to interpret some Old Testament prophecies

non-literally. That's their argument.

But in most cases, y'all, I want

you to know the New Testament is not even interpreting those prophecies.

But merely what's happening in the New Testament, applying principles that are

found in them. In fact, stories of Old Testament prophecies relating to Christ's

first coming were literally fulfilled.

Literally. I mean, there are several compelling reasons, I believe,

for interpreting the Old Testament prophecies literally.

First, if the literal sense of a passage is rejected, as Brother Ronnie brought

up, who is to determine what the non-literal or the spiritual sense is?

Since the normal rules of interpretation don't apply anymore.

In other words, you've left the hermeneutics behind. You've left that science

of interpreting, right?

You've left the historical, grammatical, all that. You've left it behind.

And so you'll have all those things that come up with all these people who try to interpret things.

And usually what's going to

happen is it's going to go towards how people like to see things, right?

That's just the way our world is.

Theologian Kaiser actually says this because of that.

He said, who or what will arbitrate among the various non-literal meanings suggested

and decide which are to be accepted as authoritative, which are spurious,

or in other words, false, are just not important.

Short of saying that every person's fancy is his or her own rule,

there does not appear to be any final court of appeal. In other words,

there's no hermeneutic there.

There simply are no justifiable criteria for setting boundaries,

if you will, once the interpreter actually departs from the normal use of the language.

And y'all, this is the way we study scripture, right? The way we study God's word.

We don't read into the text what we want to see, do we?

You know what that's called, right? When you read a text and you basically,

you just read into it what you want, that's eisegesis.

And I always say to people, that's kind of how I see it, right?

But when you exegete the scriptures, exegesis, that's when you pull that from

the text, from God's holy word.

And by the way, let me just remind everybody here tonight, The Bible is God's breath on a page.

You can't separate the word of God from God. You can't.

The Bible contains God's breath on a page, divinely inspired by God.

And if it goes against his word, it's not truth.

God will never tell you to do something that is not in his word.

It just won't agree with his word. But second here, as we flow in this,

adopting a non-literal view of the Old Testament kingdom prophecies,

it really raises some disturbing questions.

Again, what did those prophecies mean to those whom they were addressed to?

Stop and think with me tonight.

If prophecies seemingly addressed to Israel really apply to the church,

which some people believe that, which didn't even exist at the time,

did God give revelation that failed to reveal because of that?

And if those prophecies were meant to apply symbolically to the church,

why were they addressed to Israel?

All kinds of problems come up. What meaning could such prophecies actually have

in their historical settings?

You know, ironically, many who actually spiritualize Old Testament prophecies,

they reject the futurist interpretation of Revelation because simply it allegedly

robs the book of its meaning for those to whom it was written.

Yet they do the very same thing, y'all, with the Old Testament kingdom prophecies.

And then I think third tonight, spiritualizing those prophecies leads to just

major inconsistencies all over the place. Because think about it for a moment.

It's inconsistent to argue that, think about this, the cursings they pronounce

apply literally to Israel, while the blessings they promise apply symbolically

and spiritually to the church.

You know, an example of that inconsistency in the spiritualizing method,

so to speak, we'll call it of interpreting prophecy.

It comes from the angel Gabriel's words to Mary in Luke chapter one.

Y'all remember these words.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high.

And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father. Listen to this,

David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

If, as all conservative scholars actually agree, Jesus was literally conceived in Mary's womb,

literally named Jesus, right, literally became great, was literally the son

of the most high God. Do you see it?

Will he not also literally reign on David's throne over Israel?

I mean, it's right there. You would have to deny the proper study and interpretation

of Scripture to come up with something else.

And so can the same passages be interpreted both literally and non-literally?

Those type of questions. But both amillennialist and postmillennialist interpret

some prophetic events literally.

Such as Christ's second coming, they'll do that. The great white throne judgment,

they'll do that. The new heavens and the new earth.

Why not interpret the millennial kingdom literally?

Like I told y'all, there is no place in Revelation where numbers are used symbolically ever.

But finally, and I'll wrap this part up. I hope it hasn't been too deep tonight.

But finally, all millennialists and post-millennialists interpret the non-prophetic portions of Scripture.

You know how they interpret those?

According to the literal, historical, grammatical, and contextual method of hermeneutics.

But yet, for some reason, when it comes to prophecy, they want to have a brand new scale to do that.

Which just doesn't really jive with me in looking at Scripture. It doesn't jive.

But though this is not an exhaustive description of the earthly kingdom,

this actually caps off all the biblical revelation about the millennium by revealing

four essential truths about it here in this passage that we read tonight.

Okay, we're going to tie a bow on things here at the end.

What do we see in this passage from a bird's eye view that's going to happen?

We see the removal of Satan is going to happen.

We see the reign of the saints is going to happen. We see the return of Satan

is going to happen after how many years?

Thousand years. And then we see the revolt of society.

That's that big picture view. And starting next week, Lord willing,

we're going to break this down and we're going to come down a little bit.

We're going to look at, first of all, the removal of Satan. Okay.

That's where we'll pick up. Tonight, I know it's kind of been floating out there

in theology, maybe all that kind of stuff. And I don't know how familiar.

I hope nobody was lost tonight.

But just talking about some of these views, I think it's important and why we

believe what we believe and how important it is to interpret Scripture correctly

and use a proper biblical hermeneutic to do that.

So that was our big bird's eye view tonight. Okay. Any thoughts tonight?

Did I go too deep tonight? Did I make sense? Yes. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure.

I don't know. Do you know, and you don't have to shout it out,

but do you know which view you hold of the millennium?

You know, do you hold the premillennialist view? Do you hold all millennialist?

Do you hold postmillennialist? And why?

Those are good questions to ask, you know, according to scripture.

Why do you hold those views? Now, in the end, I always told somebody before,

you know, because you also have those about the rapture, you know,

the pre-tribulationists, the mid and the post, right?

When Christ is going to rapture his church before it starts or in the middle

of it or at the end of it, that type thing.

And I'll be honest with you, I always tell you what I hold to.

I hold to that pre-tribulation rapture, right?

But I always told people, look, I could easily be a pan-tribulationist.

It's all going to pan out how God wants it to.

No matter what I believe, okay? But the best I can see scripture,

the best using, you know,

scripture to interpret scripture and the Holy Spirit, all these methods here,

looking at scripture, the best we can see the evidence is there,

I believe, for the pre-tribulation rapture as well. But if I'm wrong, it's okay.

But I believe the evidence supports that view strongly, strongly.

But any other thoughts tonight? I find it's interesting that Satan is bound

and throw it into the bottom of this pit. I did too.

And there's utopia. Yeah.

And nobody kind of balks at it. And they let him out and he causes trouble.

Yeah. And then people rebel.

I'm like, really? You had utopia. Why are you upset?

Yeah. And it's just because we lost it. Yeah. And we got to remember,

this is the earthly kingdom, right? This is the millennial kingdom.

And so this is like that utopia, so to speak, we were talking about.

But yeah, you're right. And also questions that come to my mind,

which is, you know, my thoughts are not God's thoughts and his ways are not my ways.

But it is like I thought, too, in that, you know, through him,

you know, bound him, why let him out again?

Yeah. Right. But that's in God's plan and purpose.

There's a there's a reason behind that. Now, we studied we'll study that a little

more in the future weeks.

But there's a reason behind that must happen that way.

I mean, God is sovereign over all of it. And then finally, it's forever and ever.

Right after that, at the end of that, when he is released, you know,

he will be thrown eventually into the lake of fire forever and ever and ever,

never to be released again.

And that's what God says. Okay. Any other thoughts?

Personally, that I am covered in God, Jesus' Word.

And it really doesn't matter what I think, because it's going to be the way God wants it to be.

So it doesn't matter what I think, as long as I'm covered in His blood and I'm ready.

Yep, as long as you know the Lord, as far as it's taking place,

don't lose sleep over this, is what she's saying. Don't lose sleep over it.

I mean, I have a reason scripturally supporting why I believe what I believe,

but I'm not going to lose sleep over anything, right? Because I trust God with it.

The big bottom line is make sure you know Jesus.

Make sure you're ready. Make sure you've been covered in the blood, right?

Make sure you are right with God and he's going to take care of it. Okay.

He's going to work it all out.

But also doesn't remove responsibility from us to study God's work and to know

what we believe and why we believe it as well.