02.61. LECTURE No. 61 -- Rev_20:7-10
LECTURE No. 61 -- Revelation 20:7-10
God Blesses His Word Even When Men Openly Oppose It - It Is Not an Easy Task to Witness to the Truth of God’s Word in the Face of Opposition - After the Kingdom Age - What Will Happen Then? - The Loosing of Satan from the Bottomless Pit Will Be in Keeping with the Plans and Purposes of God - Why God Will Allow Satan to Be Loosed - The Kingdom Age Will Not Be the Age of Final Perfection - Children Will Be Born and Death Will Continue to Take Its Prey - Because Man Is a Free Moral Agent He Must Have the Right to Choose Between Christ or Satan - Satan’s Imprisonment Will Not Change His Character - The Strange Outcome of This Last Rebellion - The Saints Will Rejoice and Be Thankful When Satan Is Cast into the Lake of Fire - The Doom of All Who Follow Satan Openly Declared - Why Will Men Refuse to See This Truth?
God Has Blessed His Word Against All Opposition WHEN we began these studies, I must confess that few people were interested; others were indifferent and some were openly opposed to any effort on our part to study and the preach the wonderful truths contained in the Book of Revelation.
So many had the idea that because some preachers had neglected and avoided preaching from this book that all of us should do the same thing, but we are happy to say that since we began our study of this remarkable book, God has wonderfully blessed His Word to the hearts of multitudes of people who have been listening to these broadcasts day after day over KWTO.
Judging from the letters which we receive from our radio friends, in many states, there are multitudes of people now listening in to these messages whose hearts have been profoundly stirred and whose minds have been enlightened concerning many things which they did not understand. For all this we are truly thankful to our heavenly Father. Not an Easy Task
We assure you it has not been an easy task to preach the stern, uncompromising, fearful truths contained in this last Book of the Bible, to men everywhere in all walks of life, without compromise and without fear or favor, but if God has blessed the preaching of His Word to the edification of the saints and to the warning of sinners and to the salvation of any who were lost, we shall rejoice now and for evermore.
Lesson Text
We have progressed in our present study to Revelation 20:7, where our lesson will begin. In our last lesson, we read Revelation 20:7-10, but we did not in any wise exhaust the truth which they contain in our lesson study. Therefore, with your permission, we will read these verses again in order to refresh your minds concerning what was said and then deal with them from a different angle of approach than we did in our last lecture.
In Revelation 20:7-10 it says,
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
What Will Happen after the Kingdom Age? In our last message, based upon this passage, we spoke chiefly of the one thousand years, during which Christ will reign over the nations of the earth and of the blessings and prosperity which will come to the earth during that glorious period.
We are now ready to take up the question “After the Millennium, What?” In other words, what may we expect to take place after the thousand years have been finished. Concerning this, we do not need to be in doubt, for our lesson text plainly states that “When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.” In Keeping with God’s Plan and Purpose This is very suggestive truth, and many of you, no doubt, wonder why God will allow such a thing as this to happen. At first thought and from the human point of view, it would seem as if this would be entirely out of order and would be the complete undoing of all that will have been accomplished during the one thousand years, but this is not true as we shall see.
The loosing of Satan will be in keeping with God’s permissive will and according to His divine purpose. This is confirmed in the fact that Satan will not escape from the bottomless pit, for such would be impossible without God’s permissive will. According to our lesson text, Satan shall be loosed from His prison! In other words, he shall be loosed on purpose and he will be allowed, within the limits of God’s permissive will to go out and deceive the nations in four quarters of the earth.
Certainly, my friends, there must be some reason for this which does not appear on the surface and which is not explained in our lesson text. A Mistaken Idea
Many people have the idea that the millennium or one thousand years, during which Christ is to reign, will be the age of absolute perfection, but such is not the case.
The time of final and complete perfection will not come until the close of the millennium, at which time, Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father when He shall have put down all rule and authority and power, for He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet, as stated in 1 Corinthians 15:24-25.
We must understand, therefore, that while the thousand year reign of Christ will bring many wonderful blessings to the earth, it will not be the time of absolute perfection or of final blessing as taught in the Book of Revelation. It won’t be very long now until we will by studying about the new heaven and the new earth and about the New Jerusalem and the new temple and the new light, and the new Paradise of God, which of course are yet future. The Human Family Will Increase
There is no question but what during the one thousand years, when Satan is in the bottomless pit and Christ is upon the throne of His father, David, ruling over the nations of the earth, children will still be born to the human family the same as they are now and that death also will still exist and come to those who are disobedient.
That there will be children born during the millennium is confirmed in Isaiah 11:6-8, where it says,
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.”
Notice it says, “a little child shall lead them,” and again “the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den.”
This is positive proof that during the millennium children will be born to the human family, only under much more favorable conditions than today.
Death Will Still Continue That men will also die during this period is confirmed in Isaiah 65:20, where it says,
“There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.”
Thus, my friends, we see that even though life will be wonderfully prolonged during the millennium, yet death will still exist and will not be destroyed until after the thousand years shall have been finished, for “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” as stated in 1 Corinthians 15:26.
Man a Free Moral Agent In studying conditions which will exist during the millennium we must not forget that man has been constituted as a free moral agent with the right of choice and with the power to choose between good and evil.
All men in every age must be given opportunity to choose between Christ or Satan. Therefore, even though men will live under favorable conditions during the one thousand years, it does not mean that they will all love or obey Christ from the heart.
We know that during the one thousand years, with Satan in the bottomless pit and Christ on the throne, Christ will rule the nations with a rod of iron. In other words, He will insist upon absolute obedience to His divine authority, and He will immediately suppress and punish anyone who dares to disobey Him.
It stands to reason, therefore, that multitudes of people during that period will render only feigned obedience to Christ. In other words, they will not obey Him because they love Him but because they fear Him.
Thus, at the close of the one thousand years, in order to test the spiritual state of those who shall have lived under such favorable conditions, without anyone to tempt them, it will be necessary for Satan to be loosed for a little season! Without this, those who will live during the millennium would have no right of choice to choose between Christ and Satan.
Satan Will Still Be Satanic in Character The loosing of Satan will also prove to God and man that Satan’s imprisonment in the bottomless pit for one thousand years will not have changed his nature or his character in the least, for immediately upon his release, we are told he “Shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.”
Thus when this event takes place, it will prove that Satan is still Satan, and that many men upon the earth will still be unregenerate in heart in spite of the unusual blessings and privileges of the millennial period.
Therefore, when Satan is released it will not take him very long to deceive the nations and to gather a great army to battle, the number of whom will be as the sand of the sea. The Final Outcome of the Last Rebellion
It is very interesting to note, however, the outcome of this final rebellion.
In Revelation 20:9 of our lesson text it says, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Such devouring fire from heaven is not new in sacred history. This is confirmed in 2 Kings 1:10, where it says,
“And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.”
The disciples on one occasion remembered this miracle and when the Samaritans would not receive Jesus into their village, they were angry at them. In Luke 9:54 it says,
“And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?”
So, my friends, we see that God has power to destroy those who rebel against Him with fire, and that He has reserved the use of this fire until the time when Satan shall be loosed for a season out of the bottomless pit and shall gather an army at the close of the millennial period against the city of Jerusalem.
Then God will send fire from heaven to destroy them. Thus no battle will be fought at that time, for the wrath of men and the swords of men will be useless under such a powerful judgment from the God of heaven. The Final Doom of Satan When all of this shall have been accomplished, in verse Revelation 20:10 of our lesson text, it says,
“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
What Jesus Said
Thus, my friends, we discover exactly how and when Satan will come to his eternal doom. When Jesus was upon earth, in speaking of the final judgment of the nations in Matthew 25:41, He said,
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
In our lesson text, we have discovered that these were not idle words, but that Jesus meant exactly what He said.
Something for the Saints to Rejoice About To those who love and trust God, these words concerning Satan are a wonderful prophetic announcement. It is something for all the saints of God to look forward to and to rejoice about, because when Satan reaches the lake of fire, he will no longer be allowed to tempt and persuade men to sin against the God of heaven or against each other, as they are doing now.
Thus will come to an end the downward course of Satan who in the beginning was the anointed cherub that covereth as stated in Ezekiel 28:14-15.
We know that from that high and exalted position, Satan fell through pride, according to Isaiah 14:14, where he said, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most High.”
We know also that the time is coming, according to Luke 10:18 and Revelation 12:7-12 that Satan will be cast out of the atmospheric heavens which he now occupies as the prince of the powers of the air, as stated in Ephesians 2:2, and will be cast down to the earth during the coming time of tribulation.
At the close of the tribulation, he will be taken and cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years.
Then according to our lesson text, at the close of the thousand years, he will be loosed for a little season, after which he will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Those Who Follow Satan Will Suffer His Doom
Indeed, my friends, we do not need to wonder at all this downward course of Satan, for the pathway of unbelief and rebellion against God has ever been and will always be a downward course. This will be true of the Antichrist and False Prophet and it will be true of Satan himself, and sad to say, it will be true also of all men who dare to walk in the dangerous path of unbelief. When man turns his back on heaven, he is headed toward hell. When a man turns his face away from the light, he is headed towards darkness. When a man rejects the offered mercy and the grace of God, he is headed toward the wrath, and the judgments of God, which will bring him at last to the lake of fire, which was prepared in the beginning for the devil and his angels.
How very sad that men in every age have yielded to the power of Satan and. have walked in the pride of life and in the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and have said “No” to the overtures of mercy which God has provided for them and offered to them through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and thereby have deliberately made themselves fit subjects of Satan and will surely someday share his final doom.
When? When will men awaken to the error of their ways and to the foolishness of following Satan and to the danger there is, when living in sin.
This is an age of grace, and grace means, “unmerited favor, unbought love, and undeserved mercy.”
That is what God offers to all those who will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who will accept Him as God’s Son, and as the Messiah of Israel and as the Saviour of the world.
Sad to say, however, that multitudes of people in these days are turning a deaf ear to the Gospel of God’s grace and are rejecting God’s Son as their own personal Saviour. In consequence they are headed for death and for judgment as we shall see in our next lesson!
~ end of lecture 61 ~