The One Thousand Year Reign of Christ: Revelation 20 - Revelation: The Apocalypse

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

He laid hold of the dragon at Satan, you guys.

That serpent of old who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years.

God doesn't do it.

He sends an angel.

That's his view of how powerful Satan is.

He just, it's a no-name angel.

It's not even Michael or Gabriel.

He takes a no-name angel, he gives him a chance to take care of Satan.

Just take care of the dragon.

I mean, as much time as we give how powerful Satan is, God just sends an angel.

And you're more powerful than angels.

Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the book of Revelation.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Turning your Bibles, if you would, to Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

We are finally in Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

We've done 44 messages in Revelation, and we're coming now to the end of Revelation.

It actually gets fun from here.

It's been pretty brutal for the last eight weeks as we've been looking at the wrath of God.

And we're now moving into what we pray.

How many of you grew up praying the Lord's Prayer?

Any of you grew up here in the pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's really what we're going to see in Revelation 20, 21, and 22 is the coming of the kingdom.

And the kingdom can be defined as the reign and rule of Christ.

So when Jesus said that he came preaching the kingdom of God, he was preaching the reign and the rule of Christ.

That's literally what the kingdom of God means.

And so we're seeing the kingdom come in Revelation chapter 20, where we're seeing the formation of the thousand-year reign of Christ.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

Six times.

In chapter 20, the reign and the rule of Christ through what we call, in the Latin, millennium, Chilia in the Greek.

The word is Chile in Greek.

But it's the millennium kingdom.

And there's some different perspectives, gang, about the millennium period.

When we go into Revelation chapter 20, you're not going to see millennium.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

If we were reading it in Greek, we'd see Chile.

If we were reading it in the Latin Vulgate, we would see millennium.

But millennium means a thousand years.

What you're going to see is a thousand years mentioned six times in Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

But I want to let you know there's different views of this millennial period.

So I'm going to give you three, the three main views here to begin.

All of this is in your notes, and if you're not, if you're not taking notes, they're in there in the app that are out there.

And I want to just say this.

These are held by reputable scholars.

And we disagree.

This is one of those things it's okay to disagree with.

It's not an essential, it's a non-essential, but I'm going to give you my viewpoint and how I support it when we go into Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

But there's three perspectives.

Here's the first one.

The first one is what we call a millennial.

A millennial who don't believe, listen, that there will be a literal thousand-year reign.

They believe that it is completely symbolic of a long period of time.

But it's not literally the thousand-year reign.

This view interprets the Old Testament prophecies of a millennium as being fulfilled spiritually now through the church today.

This would be the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the most reformed churches, and episcopal churches who hold to an amillennial position.

Second view, post-millennial position, post-millennial position.

We will establish the kingdom first, and then that will bring Jesus back.

So we're bettering the earth so that Christ can come back.

This comes out of a reconstructionist theology or dominion theology.

The earth will be Christianized and all will come under God's order, then Jesus will come back.

Jonathan Edwards, who's one of my heroes.

I love Jonathan Edwards in almost every way.

His heart for prayer, his orchestrating, guiding, and leading of the first great awakening in Northampton, Massachusetts, believe this.

He was, we might, he's in the 1700s, but we might call him the first of the modern post-millennials.

And he came to this conclusion after listening to George Whitfield, who was in his 30s.

He was 30 years old.

He's preaching to crowds up to 60,000 in Boston Commons and places all around the Northeast.

And he said, and he wrote, Surely the kingdom is coming.

And so he saw that with the first great awakening, there was going to be this new move of the kingdom of God on earth that would sweep the entire globe.

Benjamin Franklin said he could walk down the streets of Philadelphia at that time and hear people singing hymns and spiritual songs anytime during the day.

So when Jonathan Edwards saw all this happening, he wrote, quote, certainly this is the beginning of the kingdom age.

This will spread all over the world.

Now, the problem with the amillennial and postmillennial viewpoints, in my opinion, and we've done this before, but you can just turn to your neighbor and say he could be wrong.

I believe it contradicts the warning in Scripture that tells us that the last days will be like the days of Noah.

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Is in that same context.

That would be 1 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 3, quote, the last days will be perilous times.

Peter prophesies it, Jude prophesies it.

All the way through the New Testament, Christ prophesies that in the last days there will be perilous, difficult times.

It also, both also set aside the nation of Israel and its unique potential and uniqueness to prophecy as it relates to them becoming a nation again, and the prophecies related to Israel also are set aside in an amillennial and postmillennial perspective.

It's interesting.

Adolf Hitler was a post-millennialist.

And he believed as he began to raise up the Nazi Party, he called it, quote unquote, the thousand-year reign of Arianism, of white supremacy.

So here's my position, the third.

The right one.

In this church.

Okay.

It's okay.

You can have a different perspective in this year.

It's totally fine with me.

You don't have to have my perspective.

But I believe in the premillennial position.

My view is that there will be a seven-year tribulation period.

That's what we've been studying in Revelation.

And at the end of which, so at the end of this tribulation period, Jesus Christ will return to set up his kingdom on earth for 1,000 years.

I believe that a thousand years in Revelation 20 means a thousand years.

And the reason I believe that is because it never says in chapter 20, likened unto a thousand years.

It says a thousand years.

All six times it refers to a thousand years as if it literally means one thousand years.

And so to hold to a premillennial view is to be consistent with the same literal, historical, grammatical principles of interpretation so as to determine the normal sense of the language of the Bible from the Old Testament to the New.

In other words, there are places, and I don't want to get into hermeneutics here, but I will say this, that there are places in Scripture that need to be taken symbolically.

There are places in Scripture where things are taken poetically.

There are aspects of Scripture that are meant to be parabolic.

But I believe as we're reading Revelation, and again, there's differences of opinion, and that is okay with me.

I can totally fellowship with people who have a different opinion than me, that in this case, and in many other cases in the book of Revelation, that he literally means for you to understand it as it was written without having to have some advanced degree.

If you have to have an advanced degree to understand the Bible, then that says to me that we have a completely misunderstanding of literal grammatical understanding historically of the Bible being written for everyone.

It's for all of us.

You're all priests, you're all kings in Christ.

And you can read the scripture, and not always, but most of the time, and I would say 95% of the time, what you read is what it's meant to mean for your life.

There are those places, and this is one of them, in my opinion, where maybe a little more explanation can be helpful, but we're reading it as it's written.

And I'm not going to embellish it.

It's going to be all pretty straightforward today.

Now, I have a whole bunch of quotes that are in the app, and I'm just going to read a few of these, and the reason these are important is because there is a critique of the premillennial perspective that it is it is a later understanding of how we interpret the book of Revelation.

And many people would point to the Schofield Bible as if that was the first time that it'd ever been taught before.

And I know I'm a lot of you people are like, what is he taught?

When's he going to just get into the passage?

Okay, but I feel like it's important.

I don't do this very often, but it's a little bit of a Bible theology class that I'm giving you some hints at.

So, after the ascension of Christ, in the apostolic period where the apostles began to preach the gospel, there were other leaders raised up, church.

We call them church fathers.

In church history, we call them the patristic fathers.

And the patristic fathers were those who predated the closing of the 66 books of the canon.

So what they said, listen now, it's important.

These quotes that I'm going to give you were said before the Bible had been completely put together in the New Testament, being combined with the Old.

Does that make sense?

You guys understand what I'm saying?

Okay.

So here's a group of the church fathers, probably the most famous, I'm going to quote here, Origen being the exception.

Origen was one of the patristic church fathers, who believed in the premillennial approach.

So that's important because it says that from the beginning there was this view of revelation.

So this is Irenaeus in 130 to 200.

He lived from 130 to 200.

So remember, it's in the 300s when we got our completed canon.

Quote, Christ is a stone cut without hands who will destroy the temporal kingdoms and introduce an eternal one when Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, and he will reign for three and a half years and be seated in the temple at Jerusalem.

This is amazing insight.

In 150, 160, right around there when he wrote this.

Then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds and in the glory of his father, sending this man to the lake of fire and bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, the rest, the hallowed seventh day.

Interesting.

The Jewish rabbis believed that the seventh one thousand year of the earth would be the rest millennium.

These are Jewish rabbis when the Messiah would come and bind Satan and set up his kingdom.

Justin Martyr, who lived between 100 and 150 in a dialogue with Trefo, asked this question.

Justin answers, yes, this will be, and there will be a resurrection of the dead and a thousand-year reign of the believers in Jerusalem, built again, broadened and adorned as the prophets of Isaiah and Ezekiel declare, and a certain man by the call it the book of Revelation.

So he just says, this is interesting, he says, a certain man by the name of John, one of the apostles in a book, The Revelation, which he prophesied that they who are faithful to our Messiah would accomplish a thousand years in Jerusalem, and after that the final resurrection.

I mean, this is good theology, you guys.

I mean, Holy Spirit was working even before the closing of the can.

It's amazing.

And man, we could go off on all kinds of movements that were happening at that time in the first 300 years that are that are just forgotten.

That'd be a really cool sermon series to do on like the forgotten movements of God.

Because there were a lot.

Tertullian in 225 believed, quote, another kingdom is promised to us for 1,000 years in the divinely rebuilt city of Jerusalem.

Hello?

Dr.

Harnock, in writing about what the early church believed about the millennium from Encyclopdia Britannica, writes, faith in the nearness of Christ, the second Adam, and the establishment of his reign of glory on the earth was a strong point in the primitive Christian church.

Dr.

Elliot, in his book, Cori Apocalypti, says, all primitive expositors except for origin, and a few who rejected the book of Revelation were premillennialist.

Norman Geisler in his church history says that, quote, Chileism, that means millennialism, is so distinct and so prominently mentioned in the early church fathers that we do not hesitate regarding it as a general belief of that age.

So, folks, we're on good ground.

We're on good ground biblically, because we're going to read it right now, but we're also good ground historically.

And let me just say this, and I'm like, I'll be done, okay?

Sorry, sorry, it's taking me a while, but I feel like it's important to say it.

Um, is that when you're when you're judging a new teaching, and there's new teachings popping up all the time.

My philosophy is this if it's new, but we've never heard of it in the old, then be aware.

Be aware that this could be dangerous, it could be heretical.

If it's new and it's happened in the old, God might be doing a new thing.

So when we look at something, and I learned this from John Wimber when I was his assistant at the Anaheim Vineyard many years ago, because we were seeing all kinds of new stuff happening in the 90s, 80s and 90s, in the area of the prophetic and prayer, and probably especially within the vineyard movement, worship, was this.

He said, Steve, we should always judge things biblically, theologically, and historically.

Not just one of those, but we look at all those things.

So that's what we're looking at.

That's why I gave you a little history lesson.

So I apologize if it's boring, but turn to Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

It's not gonna be boring anymore because it's really exciting.

And I love Revelation 20.

Oh my goodness, this is unbelievable.

We I wish we could spend 10 weeks on it, but I'm really excited about what I'm gonna do in the fall, so I'm gonna finish up the book soon.

So I don't know if that's right or wrong.

Anyway, that's what I'm gonna do.

Um and I saw an angel.

I saw an angel.

This is really cool because it starts off with an angel dealing with Satan.

I love this.

I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

He laid hold of the dragon.

That's Satan, you guys.

That serpent of old who is the devil in Satan and bound him for a thousand years.

God doesn't do it.

He sends an angel.

That's his view of how powerful Satan is.

He just, it's a no-name angel.

It's not even Michael or Gabriel.

I mean, those are the big dudes.

I mean, they're the guys that got bars, you know.

They got bars up here.

These are the guys, they've got stars.

The five-star generals don't even get called in.

He takes a no-name angel, he gives him a chance, he says, Take care of Satan.

Just take care of the dragon.

I mean, as much time as we give to how powerful Satan is, God just sends an angel.

And you're more powerful than angels.

You guys know that you're the image bearers of God.

Angels aren't.

I don't know what their makeup is.

It's not clear in scripture, but they're not image bearers.

We were created as image bearers.

The Hebrew says they look at you and I, and they're like in awe of the sons of men.

That we have been given so much as image bearers.

Now you have the Holy Spirit if you're a believer in Christ.

You've received, you've been sealed in the Holy Spirit.

You have all the powers of the kingdom within you, and he sends an angel.

Don't miss that.

That's a good point, I think.

That he sends an angel and he and he throws, he chains him up.

And he casts him into the bottomless pit.

The angel does.

He shut him up.

So this is the big this is how the millennium begins.

It's let's get the devil out of here.

I don't want to deal with him anymore.

He's a big problem.

He's an initiator of all kinds of mischief.

I'm gonna shut him up.

And he just sends a no-name angel to do it.

I want to meet that guy.

Or I don't know if you say guy.

I want to meet that angel.

What was it like?

Oh man, a piece of cake.

We angels, we look at you guys and we're always wondering, why are y'all so freaked out over him?

We just, we read the book, and one of us, we're like lined up and we're waiting for that day when God's gonna come out, and he's gonna get some angel to go, oh, I want to be the angel.

So you wouldn't believe how many times we've been fighting and jostling to get in position so we can be the angel.

Every one of us already have our hand-chosen chains.

We are like ready to go.

We are card-carrying, chain-carrying, you know, Satan binders.

So he sent him into the bottomless pit, he shut him up, he set a seal on him.

I mean, this guy is sealed up so that he should deceive the nations no more till a thousand years were finished.

Note it doesn't say till like a thousand years.

I mean it literally says thousand years.

Article, the there, thousand years were finished, literally thousand years, and after these things he must be released for a little while.

Now he gets into this really cool part.

Here's the golden age.

This is the coming of the golden age of the Lord, and I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them.

Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.

And if you're new to our church, you can go back and listen online to those messages about the beast, starting in chapter 13 onward, and the mark of the beast.

So these are the believers.

These are those who went through the tribulation, did not take the mark of the beast, and continued to follow the Lord.

Some of them were beheaded, some of them were martyred for their faith.

And they lived and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

So Isaiah says this about this millennial time, Isaiah 65.

For behold, I created A new heavens and a new earth.

And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.

It's almost like we're going to forget about the past.

We're going to forget about our life that was on this earth before.

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create.

For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing.

For in her people as a joy.

I'm going to rejoice in Jerusalem and joy over my people.

The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

No more shall this is interesting.

No more shall an infant from there live but a few days.

There'll be no infant mortality.

Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days.

For the child shall die at 100 years old.

But the sinner, being 100 years old, shall be accursed.

So living, so a baby that's 100 years old will be nothing.

Okay?

And then someone who's older, you know, will be, I mean, people are going to be living for thousands of years.

There's going to be no death there.

And so he's metaphorically saying, look, the way we look at life fundamentally and drastically is going to change during the millennial period.

And so this picture of thrones, well, who's on the thrones?

1 Corinthians 6.

Do you not know, listen to this, it's important.

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

Folks, some of you in this room will be judging the world during this time.

And if the world will be judged by you, are you not unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Do you not know that we shall judge angels?

Now the reference in 1 Corinthians 6 is conflict within the church.

Why are you suing people?

Why do you sue other believers?

He says, Why can't you work that out?

Because someday you're going to be judging kingdoms.

You're going to be on thrones judging kingdoms.

Now that's a whole nother issue of systematic theology about the rewards of the kingdom.

But men and women, it is clear, and we talked about this last week, that you're going to receive clothing.

It's going to be seen like clothing.

Remember, white robes bearing the righteous deeds of our life on earth.

So when we're working with children downstairs, when we are giving of our money to tithe, and we're giving our money to missions, and we're giving our money to the church, and we're giving our lives to help others when nobody notices, and most of the time they don't.

Jesus notices.

He sees you.

He sees that.

We're going to see that in just a moment.

It's called the Book of Remembrance in Scripture.

There is a book.

Do you guys know that?

There's going to be a book of remembrance that remembers what you've done.

Now, this is what's important.

It has nothing to do with your salvation.

It has everything to do with your salvation.

Let me say this.

When we get saved, we are saved, Ephesians 2.8 and 9, for by grace you're saved through faith, not of yourself.

It's a gift of God, not as a result of works that no man can boast.

In other words, our salvation is us simply believing in the finished life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That gets us in.

But that's not what gets us on.

Hear what I'm saying?

So walking down the aisle gets you the contract, you got married.

But the marriage ceremony is not what makes a marriage.

There's work, right?

Everybody nod your head.

There's work in marriage.

Okay, the rest of you are liars.

Okay.

So, you know, or you're not married.

Work is hard work.

So is the Christian life.

The Christian life is hard work.

But it's beautiful, it's awesome because I don't get filled with Liz to love Liz, but I get filled with Jesus to love Jesus.

So it's a it's a cool deal.

I also get filled with Jesus to love Liz.

She has to be filled with Jesus to love me.

It's way easier on my side to love her than it is for her to love me.

But Zechariah 14, Ezekiel 47, look those up sometime this week.

Look at Zechariah 14, Ezekiel 47, Isaiah 60, Isaiah 35.

All those are talking about the millennial period.

Here's what Zechariah 8 says.

I love this.

Zechariah 8, 4 and 5.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women, and I'm becoming an old man.

I'm not an old woman.

Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem.

I love this.

Each one with his staff in his hand because of his great age.

The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets.

That's what I love about our lobby.

Some of you old folks are sitting there and kids are running around.

And if you got a problem with that, then you got a problem with the Millennial Kingdom.

Because that's what it's going to be like.

And you know, I don't like having all those kids running around.

Get over it.

Because God's preparing you for heaven, man.

You know?

Now I bought into it a long time ago and have a, I they're all over my house.

Um and sometimes I have to go fly fish or escape somewhere because way too much of the time they're there.

But isn't that a cool picture of the kingdom?

I mean, that's what Colorado Springs should be like.

That's what I wish our city was like.

If I was mayor of our city, which I ain't and never will be, but if I was, I'd say, I want a city like this, where old folks can sit on their porch with their cane and kids can play and it's safe.

And we're protected.

And we love each other, and we have communities where we take care of each other, and we have community watches, and that bad guys would go, Men, don't go to Colorado Springs.

They will kick your butt.

You know, if you do bad stuff.

So anyway.

Isaiah 11.

Look at Isaiah 11, it's phenomenal.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb.

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

Whoa, that's awesome.

The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall die, lie down together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

You know, you understand what it's saying?

It's saying basically they're not devouring each other.

So now the lions become a vegetarian because it's all peace.

There's just total peace.

The nursing child shall play in the cobra's hole.

Wow.

So he's giving extreme examples to make a point.

Hyperbole.

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den, and it won't bite him.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all of my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters covered the sea.

So this is the golden age of the kingdom of God, God's ideal over the earth.

Verse 5.

But the rest of the dead, this is important to understand, we're talking about a resurrection here.

But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.

So he's speaking of those who are unbelievers.

Okay?

They're not enjoying this.

I believe they're in hell.

They're in this place of torment.

This is the first, it's called this is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is he who is part in the first resurrection.

That's us, gang.

We are a part of the first resurrection.

Over such the second death, which we're going to look at in just a moment, has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.

So we're going to reign with him because listen, church, we're a part of the first resurrection, which was the resurrection of Christ.

And so as a raptured church or the tribulation saints that went through the persecution and the great tribulation, we are experiencing the first resurrection.

And you've heard me use this phrase before, and I'll say it again.

As believers, for us, we can say, without a doubt, born twice, die once.

Born twice, die once.

For the unbeliever, born once, die twice.

This is what it's talking about.

So you're born twice if you're born again, because you were born physically and you've been born spiritually, you're only going to die once, and that's your death here.

Alright?

And for some, there even the die once isn't going to occur because it will be raptured.

We'll be raptured up and meet Christ in the sky.

But for the unbeliever, you're only born once physically.

You weren't born spiritually, and you're going to die twice.

That's a big bummer.

You're afraid of death?

Well, how would you like to be afraid of death-death?

And so you die once physically, but you're also going to die in judgment here, and we're just about to get to that.

So if you're not sure here today if you're born again, probably ought to get that straight.

Because this is the easy part.

This is the easy part.

This is the invitation.

The next thing we're going to look at is not the invitation, it's the trial.

How many of you know that when you get a ticket, if you can somehow talk that policeman out of that ticket, that's way better than trying to talk a judge out of your ticket.

So, judgment's coming, and we have been born again, and so we have nothing to worry about here.

This is a thousand years of joy.

Now, verse 7.

When the thousand years have expired, this gets really, this is really into the rim of the mysterious, Satan is released from prison.

Hmm.

And will go out to deceive the nations.

So here's what that appears to mean.

It means that during the thousand-year reign of Christ, we are still in our nations.

Because there wouldn't be four corners and there wouldn't be nations to go to if we weren't still in nations.

So, in some sense, and don't try to figure all this out, because we take it by faith, that we're still in nations.

So maybe we're still in Colorado during the thousand-year reign of Christ, but the presence of Christ is all around us.

And we see, truly, what Colorado Springs could have been during that time, because all of those that are, those that are unrighteous are being held in a place, and then Satan, and we already know from last week and the week before, that the false prophet and the Antichrist were the first to be thrown into the lake of fire.

So they're already in the lake of fire, and now uh, and that's not where the dragon is yet, by the way.

He's just, or it's just bound at that point.

So he goes out to deceive the nations, verse 8, which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.

They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city.

But then fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

Now I'm gonna give you my personal opinion, and again, could be wrong, but I don't believe that these are people.

I don't believe these are human beings.

It just doesn't fit.

But I'll tell you, notable scholars disagree with me on this, but I don't believe that what we're talking about are people during the millennial period.

Some have said babies being born are then able to be deceived by the enemy.

I don't agree with that.

I believe these are demons.

I believe he gathers these demons together that come to surround the city.

So these demons have been on death row for a thousand years.

Satan has been on death row for a thousand years, and then he's released.

And the only picture I can think of is how many of you saw the movie Warrior?

And it's about the two brothers, the brothers who both are MMA.

Pretty cool story.

Um I didn't I wouldn't encourage your anybody under 18 to watch it unless you're with the parents because it's it's kind of brutal in places and stuff.

But anyway, in the movie Warrior, one of the brothers just continues to win in this in this major championship in Las Vegas.

It's kind of the World Championship, World Series, whatever you want to call it, of MMA.

And it and he pull, and he's gonna fight his brother in the final, in the final round, and you'll have to see what happens.

But it's like, here's what it's like to me.

It's like, here's the bully.

Here's the capital B bully of all bullies.

Okay.

Give me your best shot.

Give me your best shot, is what God's saying.

All right, thousand years you've been on death row.

Now come out.

Come on out, see what you can do.

And so, and so Satan gathers demons from all over the globe.

They all come together, they surround Jerusalem, and then fire comes from heaven, he's dead.

He's actually not dead because he gets thrown into the lake of fire.

And somehow, this is what's interesting about the way God does things.

Somehow he created the dragon and he created the beast and he created the false prophet to burn forever.

And to be tortured forever.

You know, if we fell into a fire, we'd be burned up.

But somehow it seems as though, because it talks about them being tormented forever, and so he just boom, he wipes him out.

Now, Luke 6 is where I where my understanding of the demonic comes from in this regard.

Jude 6 says, And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

So the reason I read that, that there's a judgment on certain demons that'll actually be released on the last day, and then judgment comes.

And so that's what I believe is happening here is these demons are brought forth, and then the bully gets taken out.

Verse 11, one of the great verses in the Bible.

Then I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away.

There was no place for them.

This great white throne, not the White House, the great white throne.

The greatest throne ever created in heaven and earth.

White, pure, righteous, perfect.

This is now the final exam.

This is the jury.

Actually, there's no jury.

There's only a judge.

Men and women, you do not want to face righteous, holy God at the great white throne.

And if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will.

And church, if you know him, you won't.

No debate at this trial.

No jury, only a judge, no defense, only a prosecutor, no rebuttal, no appeals, no parole, no escape.

This is it.

And if you want a beautiful perspective of the great white throne, which I could never do justice to, read Charles Spurgeon's sermon on the great white throne.

Just put in Spurgeon, Great White Throne, and just read it.

It'll take you about 45 minutes to read it, and it's powerful.

God Almighty is a judge, and all the dead are standing before him.

Men and women, we will stand before Christ, but not for judgment, but for reward.

I would say this, because we're all tempted to sin, is to meditate on the great white throne.

And when you know those areas of your life that you are weak in, and you know those areas of your life where you have a propensity to go that you know is wrong, think of the great white throne.

Picture the great white throne, and may it be a motivation toward righteousness and sanctification and holiness in our lives.

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books were opened.

The books, uh, plural were opened.

Not just one book, books were opened.

And another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books.

Plural.

The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them.

They were judged according to their works.

So small and great, don't miss this.

Jesus Christ is an accountant and a bookkeeper.

For you that are accountants and bookkeepers, you are created by God with the attributes of God, because he is an accountant and a bookkeeper.

And he is keeping an accountant.

Here's what Jesus says about the last days in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

This is Jesus speaking.

For the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son.

That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father.

He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

So don't be confused, church, by some of the even evangelical theology that's out there, that somehow we do not have to worship the Son to have the same Father.

That those who come out of Islam and those who come out of Buddhism, those are coming out of the New Age movement, in some way, if they're living good lives and they're good people, somehow they're going to get in without the sun.

Jesus says, impossible.

Because I am the righteous propitiation for sin.

Verse 24, he says, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself, and has given him authority.

Listen to this.

God, the Father, has given Son authority to execute judgment also, because he's the Son of Man.

Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice.

Everybody's going to hear his voice.

And come forth those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

So that's to say this that when we begin this journey of getting saved and coming into our born-again nature of Christ, he blots out all your sin.

But if you're truly born again, you don't want to sin anymore.

You do, because we don't have the full nature of the kingdom yet.

You know, it's the it's the already, but the not yet.

You already have the kingdom, but not yet.

People still die.

Many of you are wearing glasses, and some of you that aren't have contacts.

I had LASIK surgery.

It's not because of lack of faith, it's because I am.

I am still encased in this body, yea, even created unto God, but it is aging because of that character Adam.

And so I'm in the Adamic body, but there was a second Adam who came, who introduced the new kingdom, but it was the already, but the not yet.

He said, the kingdom of God has come, but it hasn't come completely.

Does that make sense?

So what's happening here, church, is that God gives you a free will to decide to follow Christ.

When you decide to follow Christ, you didn't lose your free will.

You still have the free will to become Christ-like.

And those are the righteous deeds of the saints that we do that become our clothing in the millennial age that also have rewards.

Now I'm going to download this a lot more in August and September because I'm going to be talking about our training center.

I'm going to be talking from Matthew 25 for a couple, probably one or two messages, and I'm going to deal with this idea of you, some of you got five talents, some of you have two talents, and some of you have one talent.

And I guess we could fill in the gaps.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And it's a fantastic parable of what God requires of us with the talents we've been given.

So they come.

And there's this judgment time.

Verse 14.

Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire, and this is the second death.

So he even even death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire.

Hades being that place of the abode of the dead.

Hades is not always hell in Scripture, where there's this waiting period even for the believer.

I believe it was out of Hades that we saw the resurrection Old Testament saints rise from the grave between the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ.

Remember that?

You guys remember that?

So there was this point where Jesus said, It is finished.

He expired.

He went, I believe, I believe he descended into hell, as we talk about in the Nicene Creed.

He went into hell and he went into Hades.

And when he went into Hades, he announced his kingdom has come.

It's a new dispensation, it's a new order.

And these gates were opened somehow, and somebody saw, people saw, these resurrection saints showing up in Jerusalem.

Whoa, grandpa's here.

Let's have him cook some Jambalaya, you know, before he goes back.

I mean, he doesn't look that good.

He's not looking that great, you know.

But eventually they died.

This is the final resurrection.

It is over.

There's no more Hades.

There's no more hell.

Only heaven.

Only the new heaven and earth.

And anyone not found, written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.

So I'm a literalist.

Believe this is going to happen, church.

You believe this is going to happen.

Don't sleep.

Come.

Tell your neighbors.

Invite them to church.

Invite them into your home.

Have barbecues.

Have family gatherings.

Invite people who don't know Christ into your relationship that they might not find themselves in this position but be born again.

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