Revelation 20: What Happens to Satan in the End

Well, good morning and happy 4th of July weekend.

I hope you've celebrated America's 250th birthday in style.

If you're joining us online, Saigon on Monroe, it's so sweet to be together as we are continuing in this journey through Revelation.

If you are new with us, my name is Mudeu, if we haven't met before, and we've been in this journey for a little while, and revelation is wild.

The imagery, the stories, the pictures, and this is a revelation of Jesus to John.

And he was told to write these things down and try to describe them.

And as we've talked about in this series, the people who would have heard him, the seven churches that he wrote letters to, some of these pictures would have been in their pool of knowledge.

They would have shared the history from the Old Testament.

But for us, it's a little bit of a stretch.

So we're doing the work to sit in Scripture and let it form us.

And if you've been here for a while, Revelation 1.19 is kind of a foundational thought.

It says, write therefore what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.

As we've looked at Revelation, our posture has been we live in a current reality, a reality where the world is broken.

It's not as it should be.

Maybe on this holiday weekend you've struggled because it's brought up some heaviness for you.

We live in the broken reality of now, and Revelation shows us a picture of the future reality when everything will be restored as it should be.

So our posture in this book as we've gone through this journey has been: if we know what's coming, how should we live now?

And we're kind of in this in-between season.

Sometimes we we reference it as the kingdom of God already, but not yet.

Jesus has died on the cross and we can grab hold of that redemption and freedom, but some things will be fully realized in the end.

So we're here.

And how do we live now?

How do we see this as a call to radical discipleship to the person of Jesus?

Not calm down, not you know, slide into the culture.

No.

How do we see this as a radical call to discipleship to the person of Jesus?

So last week we saw, if you were here, Jesus coming down on a white horse.

This is probably one of my favorite images of Jesus.

He has fire in his eyes, and it's the Jesus you don't mess with.

And I like to imagine this version of Jesus, this picture, this image of him.

When the enemy is coming for me, when I feel under attack, one of the words or descriptions of the enemy actually in Revelation is the accuser.

And when the accuser is screaming at me, when the accuser is screaming at us, I like to imagine this version of Jesus who rides in with fire in his eyes and he shuts the accuser down.

So we saw Jesus coming, riding on a white horse, and behind him is the armies of heaven.

And as they're described, it looks like those armies are us, God's people, the church.

So we ended last week with that assembly.

They had assembled Jesus riding in and the armies behind him.

And today we look at who's assembling on the other side and what happens next.

Pray with me.

God, I'm so grateful for your word.

Thank you for the power in it to speak life into us.

Holy Spirit, come.

Come and awaken our spirits that we would hear what you're saying to the churches, to our church.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

If you have a physical Bible, turn to Revelation 19.

We're going to be in Revelation 19 through 20, verse 10.

So Revelation 19, 19, the assembly of Jesus, the armies of heaven are on this side.

This is what's described on the other side.

Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.

But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf.

With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image.

The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur.

The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

So the two sides assemble.

We are preparing for an epic battle.

The moment has come.

And then the beast is captured.

It's almost like the war was fixed.

If you were here a few weeks ago, we talked about that mark that is an invitation to live a life outside of God.

Babylon is the archetype of a city that is going to do its own thing with its own rules.

We know better than God.

They don't get away with that.

The beast and its prophet, they are thrown into a fiery lake of burning sulfur.

The victory belongs to the rider and his people.

The war is fixed.

Now, I don't know how many of you are watching the World Cup.

Anybody watching the World Cup?

We're watching a lot of that in our house.

And my husband has a very clear rule about if he didn't watch the game live, he's gonna DVR it and watch it later.

Don't tell him the score.

And our kids know this, but they forget sometimes because they'll be like online or someone will text them, and we have a family chat with our family in Kenya, and they'll be saying something.

I'm like, stop talking, we haven't watched the game yet.

You know, don't spoil it for us.

Every so often we hear the score before we've watched the game.

And as we're watching the game, we feel all the emotion of, oh my gosh, these guys look like they're winning, and oh my gosh, this team has momentum, and it looks like we could go either way, but really the score is already out there.

And we know who wins.

Every week in this series, we've picked a word, a word that invites us to radical discipleship to the person of Jesus.

And our word this week is stand.

We may be living in the reality that, you know, we see it looks like the enemy is winning and it's going back and forth, but this is how it ends.

The beast and his prophet are thrown into a fiery lake, and victory is assured.

So, how do we live now?

We stand with a confidence that can only come from knowing how the story ends.

We already know.

The victory is assured, the battle is fixed.

Okay, let's keep going.

So, verse 20, nope, chapter 20, verse 1.

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the abyss, and holding in his hand a great chain, he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil or Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years.

He threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.

After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Now, as we've gone through Revelation, there have been different pictures and images that the church has interpreted differently.

And this thousand years is one of them.

Is it a literal thousand years?

Is the thousand years in the future?

Is it happening right now?

What are we living in?

And many faithful Christians through time have interpreted this differently, drawing from different parts of scripture to interpret the thousand years.

And there are many passages in scripture that talk about how a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years.

So some will argue this is an era rather than an exact thousand years.

And as we've talked about through this series, you could look at Revelation as, okay, let's let's predict when Jesus is coming and calculate the times, or we could be ready for Jesus whenever he comes, whether it's today or in a thousand years.

And that's kind of the posture I want to take with this thousand years.

The truth is, whether it is a thousand years that we're living in right now, or it's a thousand years in the future, our call is to radical discipleship to the person of Jesus.

I think I heard someone say, prepare for Jesus as it, be ready for Jesus as if he's coming today, and prepare as if he's coming in 200 years.

Like let's lean all the way into what it looks like to follow him.

Right now.

We're not waiting for a calculation, but right now, let's look at our lives as an invitation to follow Jesus with everything we have.

Let us stand.

What we know for sure, however, we interpret this, and what Christians agree about, however, they interpret this, is that Jesus is coming back.

He's coming back.

Jesus is coming back.

And when he does, there will be a final victory and judgment over sin, evil, Satan, the beast, the prophet.

The victory is assured.

That's what we know.

So let's keep going.

Verse 4.

I saw thrones on which were seated those who have been given authority to judge.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God.

They had not worshipped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.

They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

We had talked a few weeks ago about this image and what it looks like for our minds to be formed, either by the world and darkness and a life without God or by God, that our worldview is influenced by who Jesus is, that we are marked by God if we choose to follow Jesus.

But these who are marked, these are the ones who chose not to be marked, and they are ruling, they are reigning with Jesus, they're seated.

Verse 5: the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.

This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection.

The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him for a thousand years.

Verse 7.

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and to gather them for battle.

In number, they are like the sand on the seashore.

They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camps of God's people, the city he loves.

But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

So this is another stage of, it's another another standing of like, oh my gosh, a mighty battle is approaching, and there are many in number, and Satan is released, and he goes and gathers all the people and they surround God's people, the city he loves, and then fire comes from heaven, and the showdown is over.

And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulphur where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.

They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

This is a decisive end to evil.

I feel like if you're online right now, there's thunder, it feels like part of the message.

This is a decisive end to evil.

There's no question about how this ends.

I want to go back to the idea of being deluded into taking the mark of the beast, being deluded into the alluring adulteries of Babylon.

And our call, two weeks ago, we looked at the call of the church.

Come out of her, come out of Babylon.

You don't belong there.

The reality is we're steeped in Babylon.

In our culture and the worldview around us, it is going against the worldview of God.

So we must stand.

Because Babylon doesn't get away with having these adulteries and alluring people into sin.

We saw Babylon fall.

The beast doesn't get away with mocking God and killing God's people.

The prophet, the false prophet who had deluded people into getting the mark of the beast, they don't get away with that.

There is a decisive judgment in the end.

Satan does not get away with all he's done and all he's doing.

In light of all this, what is our invitation?

Our invitation is to stand, to stand strong and stand tall.

That we're invited to live as if we know how the story ends, as if we know the score.

Even if today some evil seems so dark.

I've heard stories even in the last two weeks that I'm like, what?

The evil seems so dark, but the light wins in the end.

And I just want to articulate that some of you may be listening to me and you've never heard this before, and maybe you don't know Jesus yet.

You have been marked by the world, and you have gotten to do what you feel like when you feel like, believing the lie of the enemy.

And I want to invite you to a different way.

The reality, the truth, the good news of Jesus is that He came for us in that darkness, in that place where we were deluded into thinking if I do this my own way, I will build a better life for myself.

And you know how that ends.

It ends in a dark place.

Even before you read Revelation, you know that that life where I get to do me and I don't care about anybody else, ends in a dark place of destruction.

And there is another way.

Jesus came to take our sin and our shame.

This is the good news.

This is what Christians believe.

He came to take all our stuff, and the wrath that we all deserve, he took it on himself.

So that we could have a relationship with him.

And when Jesus died, the earth grieved, the earth shook, rocks cracked open.

The disciples were disillusioned.

It seemed like the end, but the war was fixed.

He didn't state it.

He rose from the grave and he conquered all of that.

That conquering started then and it'll end on the day of the Lord.

So if you don't know Jesus, I just want to make a very clear invitation that you would give your life to him.

And how you give your life to him is you acknowledge that you have been marked by the world, that you are a sinful person like we all are, and that you receive Jesus' sacrifice for you on the cross.

And then start to walk with him the rest of your life.

Make a stand.

And if you are a follower of Jesus and you found that you've gotten seeped into Babylon, and it's easy to kind of fold and fall and not really make a stand for what you believe, this is our invitation today.

That as we see how the story ends, that there is a decisive end to evil.

There's a decisive end to the beast, its prophet, the devil, Satan.

That this Jesus who rides in with fire in his eyes, we don't want to be on this side of that riding in.

We want to be behind him as part of the army.

And how we do that is we live for him, we stand for him.

I want to share with you a few stories from camp.

So I also get to oversee our family ministries at 242.

And a couple weeks ago, we started our camp season.

So in the summer, while other things are slowing down, we are ramping up, and it's the best season of the year for us.

So our high school students and then our elementary students went to camp a few weeks ago.

And if you've heard me talk about camp, in the last three years, I've seen a shift with our students.

Camp is kind of like an amazing buffet of really good food spiritually.

There's like starters and soup and steak and vegetables and dessert and grapes, juice.

It's just so good.

And a few years back, I used to feel like students would go look at the buffet and eat a chip and then leave, you know?

And I'm just like, what are you doing on Instagram right now?

This is so good.

And I would struggle because I felt like they weren't fully leaning in or locking in or paying attention.

Then I started to see a shift.

About three years ago, I didn't stay at camp, I was visiting, and I sensed the Lord say to me, listen.

And as I was listening, these students were singing with their whole hearts.

There was a hunger and a leaning in that I hadn't seen before.

There was maybe one or two kids who were distracted, but the rest of them are leaning in.

And it's only gotten more intense in the last few years.

So this year was no different.

And worship is special for me.

I love to worship the Lord through song.

And it's probably one of the moments that I watch the students and just weep.

There's a sense of absolute surrender.

They're leaning in with everything they have.

And I want to share with you the lyrics of one of the songs that they sang two weeks ago.

2,000 kids with their hands in the air.

Will you put the lyrics up for me?

Wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, count me in.

And then, okay, cheeky cheeky, wherever you're leading, whatever it costs me, count me in.

I think part of why I'm so endeared to what God is doing with the next generation right now, it's not just at our church, it's literally around the world, is because I remember as a young person singing these songs of absolute surrender and honestly not knowing what I was singing, not knowing what the cost was going to be.

And as I watch these kids make a stand, say that they're all in for Jesus, whatever it costs them, there's something that the Lord responds to in that.

When we're willing to give everything we have for Him, and when we're willing to surrender.

I feel like the hunger that the next generation is worshipping the Lord with is kind of like a lightning rod that is attracting God's presence.

He's just like, that's where I want to be.

That's who I want to be with.

They're making a stand for me, I'm there.

Now, what was so sweet for me this last few weeks is that I got to go back and forth from our high school camp and our kids' camp.

So this next picture is from our kids' camp.

We very different vibe.

It's like a hundred kids at a campsite were outdoors, we sleep in teepees.

Okay, I didn't.

But they did, and it was amazing.

And there was a night we had planned to have a campfire, and on that night we She had a very clear presentation of the gospel and asked kids to follow Jesus.

And it rained the whole day.

Campfire didn't happen.

And our team is so creative.

They got these balloons and a light and made a fake campfire.

And Anna, who's our kids' pastor at this campus, I didn't even know she plays guitar, but she was standing in the middle of the kids and leading them in.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back.

No turning back.

And these kids were singing with everything they have.

They were almost drowning Anna singing, I have decided to follow Jesus.

They're making a stand for what it means to know and love him.

They are choosing to follow Jesus.

And I think that in some beautiful ways, the next generation could lead us.

Perhaps as we get older, it's more costly to lift our hands and say whatever it costs me.

My pastor in Kenya talks about uh golden uh cuffs.

You know, have a mortgage.

Okay, it can cost me something, but don't tell me to move.

You know, we have more stuff that we're holding on to.

But let our children lead us in telling God, you have all of me.

Even if it's costly to stand for the gospel, even if it's costly to stand for you, I know how the story ends.

This is where I want to be.

I want to stand.

So as I was processing today, I want to invite us to a physical response.

And here's how I'm going to set it up.

I want to invite you to stand physically in a minute.

Even if you're at home watching on your couch, I want to invite you to stand.

Saginaw Monroe.

And this is what standing means this morning.

It means that you are going to live for Jesus, no matter what the cost is, because we know how the story ends.

We're going to make a stand.

I don't know if you have a picture in your mind about a compromising situation at work or in your extended family.

I don't know if there's a space you've been in where you know you've allowed yourself to slide with the culture.

If you are here and you are at camp, it's so beautiful and powerful to worship with 2,000 kids.

But there will be a day in the fall when you're by yourself at school and you will need to stand.

So my invitation for us this morning before we go to other next steps is if you are choosing to stand for Jesus, I want to invite you to stand.

Whether you're at home or in Saginaw or Monroe or in the room, stand and I would like to pray for us.

God, see your people.

Whatever it costs us, wherever you lead us, we will be found standing for you.

Whether you're coming tonight, whether you're coming in two decades, in five decades, we will stand for you today.

I pray that you would form our hearts.

I pray that you would draw us into a place where we desire you more than anything, that we wouldn't be deluded by the prophet, the false prophet, by the beast, by the enemy, that our hearts would be yours, that you would know that there's these people in Michigan or wherever people are watching us online that have chosen to stand for your name.

Lord, would you be glorified in our generation to the honor and glory of your name?

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

You guys may be seated.

So sweet.