The Thousand Years: The Certainty of Christ's Victory - Glorious Hope | Studies in Revelation

We'll return to God's word for our scripture reading.

We're reading from Revelation chapter 20, and we're reading the

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

first 10 verses.

Revelation chapter 20 and beginning at verse one.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his

hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.

And he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil,

and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into

the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not

deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended.

After that, he must be released for a little while.

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority

to judge was committed.

Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony

of Jesus and for the word of God.

And those who had not worshipped the beast or its image

and had not received its mark on their foreheads and or on their

hands.

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 ended.

This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection

over such.

The second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and

of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released

from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are

at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them

for battle.

Their number is like the sand of the sea.

And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded

the camp of the saints and the beloved city.

But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of

fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were.

And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.

Amen.

This is the word of God.

I once watched a nature program about beekeepers.

Now, these beekeepers were from southern England, and they were

talking together, spending a lot of time discussing different

hive types, queen excluders, feeding methods, swarm prevention

treatments, and whether one management system was better than

another.

It was a program that was about encouraging the next generation

to take on beekeeping.

Now, I will be honest, I did go back and look this up of what

I've just read there, because I just didn't remember what their

whole conversation was about.

But their conversation was very interesting because their discussion,

although it was worthwhile.

These experienced beekeepers had very strong opinions on their

approaches.

The person hosting the conversation wasn't a beekeeper,

and quite simply asked the question, what's actually going on

here?

Each beekeeper, despite their different methods of how to keep

bees and how to manage their hives, agree on the main point.

They said together that the colony was alive because the queen

is there.

Everything depends on her.

And of course, that's the message that these older beekeepers

wanted to hand on to these younger beekeepers, so that as they

grew, they would receive this wisdom that what was most important

was the queen bee.

Now, I'm not about to give you a sermon on beekeeping, because I've

already admitted I've had to go back and find out some of the

terms that they were talking about.

But it struck.

It has stuck with me as it struck me.

And I've gone back to this illustration time and again, particularly

when it comes on how to preach Revelation 20.

Because this chapter, of all the chapters in John's Revelation,

has generated many discussions among Christians.

Faithful believers throughout the generations have disagreed about

exactly how to understand what this text talks about.

The thousand years.

And those discussions matter and have mattered.

But we don't want theological positions to obscure what the main

message is, to link it in with the illustration I've just given.

John wants us to see the queen bee, if you like, the central reality

that gives life to the whole passage.

And what is that?

Well, that the central reality is Christ reigns, Satan is restrained,

and God's people are secure.

That's what these 10 verses are telling us.

Evil will finally be destroyed.

And if we lose sight of these truths while arguing over the details,

then we've missed what John most wanted us to see.

In my own devotions last month, I came across this comment

that I thought was helpful.

It was helpful for me, particularly as a way to frame how

we're going to think about these 10 verses.

This evening, the writer wrote, and I don't know who the author

was.

The concerns of the modern church aren't trivial, but the danger

is when inessential matters distract from Christianity's beating

heart, Jesus Christ, who saves sinners and gives his life so that

we might live.

I hope that throughout this study in Revelation, I have focused

on on just that.

I have focused on Jesus.

Well, at least that's what I set out to do.

I have my theological interpretation of this book, and

you do too.

For some of you, you will agree with me, and for some of you,

you will not.

But the point of this series is not to argue and fight over who

is right and who is wrong.

That certainly hasn't been my agenda.

Rather this, the living word of Scripture.

Through it, we get a glimpse of what our future reality will be.

And that reality is where Christ is on the throne and death

is defeated.

Sin will be punished, and the redeemed in Christ will be brought

home to heaven.

All theological positions are secondary to this.

And because I haven't preached overtly what I have believed by way

of nuts and bolts and the technicalities, that doesn't mean

that I don't have a conviction about it.

I do.

But the purpose of the pulpit is not for me to persuade you about

what I believe.

The purpose of the preaching in the pulpit is to open God's word

and understand Christ from every page and the salvation that

the Gospel brings.

And I say all this because we will need to talk about why this

passage is so often debated and why all sides involved take such

strong positions.

And although there are four approaches to understanding revelation

as a whole, it's when you come to the issue of the thousand years

or millennium that we focus on three understandings, just really

for the first five or six verses.

Those positions are premillennialism, post millennialism,

and amillennialism.

Let me give you quite literally three minutes of what these

mean.

The first view there on the screen is called premillennialism.

It's actually the newest of them.

It teaches that Christ will return before the thousand years,

and after his return, he will establish a reign on earth for a

thousand years before the final judgment and the new creation.

But there are different forms of premillennialism.

Some Christians, particularly within dispensational theology, distinguish

between Christ's coming for his church and his coming with his

church, while others do not.

But they share the conviction that the thousand years is still

a future period to come following Christ's return.

The second view, and there the middle view, is post millennialism.

And it teaches that through the spread of the gospel and the

work of the Holy Spirit, the influence of Christ's kingdom will

grow throughout the world, leading to a prolonged period of

righteousness and peace, often understood as the thousand years.

Christ then returns after this period to bring the final judgment

and the new creation.

The third there is amillennialism.

And although many who hold it feel the name is slightly misleading,

because it does doesn't mean that there is no millennium.

Rather, it understands the thousand years as a symbolic description

of the present age between Christ's first and his second coming.

Christ reigns now from heaven.

Satan's power has been decisively limited by Christ's victory

at the cross.

And believers who die are reigning with Christ.

And this present age will end with Christ's return, the resurrection

of the dead, the judgment of humanity, and the new creation.

And, you know, I'm going to be honest and tell you probably not

one of those is perfect.

And if you hold to one of those, you need to admit that it's

not perfect, because there's going to be little moments, as we'll

see in a particular verse today, that can be upsetting.

And there's one verse that's very hard for me because it does

doesn't fit in with the theological position I come from.

So none of these are perfect.

That's why we're not going to look at one in particular.

Rather, we will look at this pastorally to see what is the one

message that actually unites all three perspectives.

So with this, let's work towards the queen bee, as it were,

the Gospel thread that runs through this passage.

And we're going to look at it in three sections.

First of all, Satan's power is restrained.

Then Christ reigns with his people, and then finally, evil has

an appointed end.

So beginning in verses one to three, we see a description given

to us that Satan's power is restrained.

In verse one, John sees an angel coming down, and in his hand

he sees a key and chains.

And John tells us that the key is for the bottomless pit and a prison,

as it were, into which Satan will be placed.

And in that prison he will be bound by the chains that are in the

other hands of the angel.

And as we go into verses two and three, we see Satan described

as he was.

In Genesis three we have that term, serpent, or as John refers

to him here, that ancient serpent, letting us know that the

devil has been at work from the foundation of the world.

And we're told that he is bound for a period, be it a literal

thousand years, or that being a symbolic number identifying a fixed

time.

But look at what verse three and says, and the purpose of why

he is restrained and imprisoned.

This is he's thrown into the pit and the pit is shut and it's

sealed over the serpent.

Why?

So that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the

thousand years were ended and that he must be released for a little

while.

Now, when you read the text, you notice that it doesn't say, satan

does not deceive anyone.

The point is that the nations are not deceived to the extent that

they wage final war against God's people.

Another way of interpreting this is that the deception relates

to the spread of the gospel.

With the coming of Christ, the gospel now goes to the ends of the

earth.

In the Old Testament, salvation was confined to Israel

only, and the nations of the world were deceived by the Satan

so that they would be deluded to worship false gods.

Well, now the Gospel is believed by all nations.

So give me a nation in the world where there is not a believer,

an indigenous national believer.

You can't, because the Gospel has gone everywhere.

And so Satan no longer deceives the nations as a whole,

as he did in the Old Testament era.

Unbelievers are, yes, still deceived by Satan.

But the deception over all nations that characterize the Old

Testament period is now lifted so that some believe from every tribe,

tongue, people and nation.

In one sense, Satan was bound at the cross and so prevented from

gathering and uniting all nations to oppose the Christ and

his people until the time of the end.

So we can see that in the thousand years Satan's power is restrained

so that the nations are not deceived.

Well, the second aspect of this passage is that Christ reigns

with his people.

And that's there in verses four to six.

And there's one thing that no theological position can deny in

our understanding of revelation.

Because the whole way from chapter one, we have seen that Christ's

people are never defeated.

We've been told that those who die in Christ are alive with him,

and death doesn't interrupt the believer's victory.

And this we see again here in these verses, because John's focus

is now drawn to thrones.

And as we've seen in other places in Revelation, as well as

other portions of Scripture, the throne is a place of authority.

And so those who sit on the thrones are given the responsibility

of authority or of judging.

We're told John also sees martyrs, those beheaded because of

their testimony of Jesus and the Word of God.

And the testimony of Jesus has played a significant role in the

book, as has the Word of God.

We see it coming again, time and again.

And authority is given to those who suffered for Jesus sake,

who gave their lives because of the word of the Gospel.

And so what John is saying here is the entire church viewed

as a martyred church, as those who have given their lives for Jesus

Christ.

Isn't that what we do?

We give away the old sinful nature into which we were born, and

we put on the new cloak, as it were, the new garments that are clean

and perfect, because we are in Christ.

So yes, we are the Church of all ages who have had to change.

We've been given new lives in Jesus.

And so John now sees that those who are martyred have been

martyred and are now vindicated by God through their physical

resurrection.

Verse 5 continues to speak of resurrection when it says the rest

of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were

ended.

This is the first resurrection.

Now, all three millennial theologies view this part of the

text of the resurrection of the dead very differently.

But verse five tells us that the rest of the dead do not come

to life until the thousand years have ended.

So if only martyrs come to life in verse four, the remainder

of the dead includes all unbelievers and all other believers.

But if verse four refers to all believers, then the rest of the

dead refers only to unbelievers.

Well, what this does tell us is that there is a resurrection of

the dead.

From our perspective, we perhaps take this for granted as

we are 2000 years on from John's original audience.

But resurrection in Jesus Christ was a completely new concept

for them.

They didn't fully understand it because they're still living in

the first or indeed second generation of those who have died

in faith.

And that's why Paul writes as he does in First Corinthians 15:20,

1 Corinthians 15:20

23.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits

of those who have fallen asleep.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection

of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made

alive, but each in his own order.

Christ the first fruits.

Then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

So here we have Paul writing to assure the Christian believers

that death is not the end, that all of this talk about resurrection

is true and it is to be believed.

So whichever millennial view you take, there is one guarantee,

and that is the resurrection of the dead.

However, we interpret and understand a first resurrection being

spiritual or physical, as well as a second resurrection being spiritual

or physical.

And so we have the knowledge that resurrection is true.

But resurrection is only for those who believe in the Lord Jesus

Christ.

And that's the key.

Resurrection unto eternal life is only in Christ.

And almost by way of an aside, John assures his hearers and his

readers that their faith in Christ is well placed because of

this promised resurrection unto eternal life.

Because he says in verse six, blessed and holy is the one who shares

in the first resurrection.

Over such, the second death has no power, but they will be priests

of God and of Christ and And they will reign with him for a thousand

years.

So those who experience the first resurrection will avoid the

lake of fire.

Instead, participants in the first resurrection will be priests

of both God and Christ.

And the picture of believers as priests mediating God's blessing

has been present since the the beginning of this book.

Believers are priest kings, like Adam was in the garden.

And so they will reign with Christ for 1000 years.

This is the image that we're given, where it began in verse four,

looking at the thrones and who's on them, the authority to reign

and to judge.

So we see that it is a position that is given to believers,

priest kings as Adam was in the garden.

For is that not what the new heaven and the new Earth is?

It's Eden restored.

Haven't we seen glimpses of Eden restored throughout the story

of the Old Testament?

In the tabernacle and its design and the imagery of bearing

Eden in its embroidery to the temple, to its size and shape and

its fixtures and its fittings, pointing once again to the sense

of Eden and in Christ, the promise of a new heaven, a new earth.

Where the old is gone, the new has come.

And we will know that new Eden forever.

This is who God's people will be as they reign with him forever.

So Satan's power is restricted.

Christ reigns with his people.

And thirdly, from verses 7 to 10, we see that evil has an appointed

end.

And this is good News.

In verse 7 we read that the thousand years comes to an end.

And at that point Satan is released from the bottomless pit.

And verse eight tells us what he will do after his release.

And so he will come out to deceive the nations that are at the

four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle.

Their number is like the sand of the sea.

I'm old enough to remember back to the year 2000 and we have

the Bush administration.

And you'll remember that at the time of the Iraq war, the invasion

of Iraq, there was this talk about Gog and Magog.

And taking these Old Testament terms, and now revealed to us in

Revelation to be used as one of the rationales as to why to invade

Iraq, it was finally doing away with a so called Gog and Magog.

Well, Gog and Magog do not come from Iraq, certainly as we know

it today in Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39, the nations that are attacking

Ezekiel 38 · chapter mention

Israel at that point are called Gog and Magog.

There Gog is a mysterious and monstrous king, unlike any other

of human nature.

While Magog is the name of his land or his territory.

Together they represent the ultimate hostile forces of the world

that are against God's people.

And here the terms in Revelation designate all the kingdoms

of the world that are bent on attacking the people of God.

Such an attack is due to Satan's deception, for fighting against

the people of God is futile.

John here echoes Ezekiel who says that in the last days Gog and

others will move against Israel like storm clouds, while the

people of God will be secure and unconcerned.

So according to John, these mysterious nations represent the

anti God forces conspiring against the people of God.

And haven't we seen this already?

Haven't we seen this set Megiddo or Armageddon?

Haven't we seen these forces try and rally themselves and root

God's people to destruction?

And have they succeeded?

Absolutely not.

And will they succeed here?

No.

Because Satan gathers the nations countless as the sands of

the seashore, because he has been released and will have influence

over these nations trying to think of a final battle against God's

people.

Verse 9 tells us of their battle plan as they gather themselves

around God's people trying to encircle them.

But they will not conquer.

For as soon as they are in position we are told that fire came

down from heaven and consumed them there.

In verse nine, evil thinks it will win, but it doesn't have a chance

before it can strike.

Its day is ended and the armies of evil are consumed by fire.

And verse 10 goes on to assure us of this by detailing.

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of

fire and sulfur while the beast and the false prophet were.

And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

And isn't this a welcome report for us?

Isn't this our glorious hope?

The Satan is defeated and can no longer deceive humankind with

his lies.

This unholy trinity are together forever, but not in a place

that they would desire.

The devil who incited the last battle and deceived the peoples of

the world to participate in the battle against God and the peoples.

And the Lamb is cast into the lake of fire along with the beast

and the false prophet.

There they will be tormented forever.

No wonder John has heard the rejoicing in heaven in chapter 19.

For reading these words, we too need to cry Hallelujah that evil

will come to an end.

And so we come to the end of these ten verses.

Wherever you fit in your theological millennial view.

I believe, and I've tried and worked hard to see how we can come

together to look at what is the center of this text, whether

it's understanding a literal 1000 years or a symbolic one, we

have this truth before us in each interpretation that Christ reigns

with his people.

Satan's power is restrained, and evil has an appointed end.

And so, as we come to the end of this passage, we have looked at

that thousand years and the defeat of the evil one.

And Revelation 20 isn't meant to leave us arguing about a timetable.

It's meant to leave us trusting in our king.

Christ reigns today, even when the world seems out of control.

Satan is real, and his work is real and his demonic forces are real,

but he is restrained.

Although restrained, we mustn't think that he is inactive,

for he is.

Because Peter says in 1st Peter 5, 8, be sober minded.

Be watchful, be on your guard.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion

seeking someone to devour.

We must resist him, and we must stand firm in the faith.

God's people may suffer, but we are never abandoned.

And not even death can separate us from our Savior.

One day, the devil's work will finally end.

Evil will be judged for what it is forever.

And Christ's kingdom will be seen in all its glory.

So whatever tomorrow brings, let us leave here with confidence,

perseverance, and hope, because Jesus Christ has won the

victory.

He reigns today, and he will reign forever.

And this is our invitation to trust in him this night and to trust

in him forever, so that we will know the blessing of salvation.

We will know our eternal home in heaven.

And there's perhaps no better way to finish than with the words

of Paul in Romans 16:20, where he says, the God of peace will soon

Romans 16:20

crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

However these things play out, be it a thousand years that are literal,

or be they literally symbolic in a period of time, the reality

is we each need a Savior.

For it is only the Savior who will win, because it is the Savior

who will defeat sin and evil.

And it is only the redeemed who have trust in the Savior who

will cry, hallelujah.

Salvation belongs to our God.

You see, we have a Redeemer.

He has given his life for us, and it is to him we're to look, so

that we will trust him, regardless of how we will interpret

all of the ins and outs, nuts and bolts of these 10 verses.

Rather, we will look to him as the one who is victorious, who in

fact gives us the glorious hope that we so desperately need,

that we can only find in our Savior, Jesus.

So may he be to you this night who you need him to be, your Savior,

your Lord, your confidence of the victory in the end, and your

sure entry into eternity in heaven.

Let us pray.

Our Father God for this.

Your word, a word that can so easily divide us.

We ask that you will help us to look at what is the central thread.

You will help us to look for the message of the Gospel.

You will help us to see what assurances we can have as your people

here and now, so that we can share these with others that while

there is still time, they too will come to saving faith in Jesus.

So Father, help us to respond well this night and with all your

people, cry hallelujah, for the victory is won, and it's in Jesus

name we pray.

Amen.

Sam.