All right, we'll stay right there
in Revelation 20. Christ's victory over Satan. And you're right, Jim, that's
the same as Christ's victory over sin. It's his victory over
death, his victory over hell. Well, I know that people's thoughts
today, a lot of our thoughts are on the events that took place
yesterday former president of the United States was an attempted
assassination. And I think about that and I
noticed that many on the newscast spoke often of the providence
of God. They'd say it was providential
that that bullet didn't go one inch further to the, I guess
it'd be to his left and hit his ear. And of course, we know the
fact of the matter is that it is providential, because we know
what is providence? That's God's governance of the
events of this earth. God's in control. When I hear
that from people, I always just say, well, I hope and pray that
if you really believe that, that the Lord will use that to bring
you to seek him in the gospel. Because you really don't know
God, even though you might attribute all things to providence, you
really don't know God until he reveals himself to you in Christ.
And the salvation that he's freely and fully provided in and by
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's another issue, isn't it? But when we look at things like
that, it causes sorrow among us. And we think, well, it's
out of control. Things are just going berserk. But it's not. And we're not fatalists. Somebody said, you all believe
whatever will be, will be. And I said, well, do you believe
whatever will be, won't be? Yeah, I believe whatever will
be, will be. But that doesn't make us fatalists.
We walk on this earth. We have our minds. We go about
our daily lives. And we try to do right. We try
to think right. But we do know we have that comfort
that God's on the throne. Our God reigneth, the psalmist
said. And when I look at passages like
this, this is the last vision of Revelation. There's seven
visions. This is the seventh. goes to the end of the book,
and it takes us back to the first days of the New Covenant, the
New Testament, when Christ came into the world, lived on this
earth, kept the law perfectly, obeyed it in every jot and tittle,
went to the cross, suffered, bled, and died, and rose again
the third day, and ascended unto his father, takes us back to
that point, and carries us all the way through until the second
coming of Christ and the great white throne judgment. And as
you notice, as Brother Jim read through this, there's a lot of
stuff here, isn't there? Lot to take in. So I'm gonna
divide it up. I'm not gonna try to give it
to you in one fell swoop. In fact, I'm really only gonna
deal with the first three verses today. But this first part of
the seventh vision deals with the binding and the loosing of
Satan by God's decree so that Satan is prevented from accomplishing
his desire, his evil desire, to deceive the nations. And then
he's set free to be used as an instrument of God's judgment
upon the unbelieving world. God's judgment. And if you don't
believe Satan's under God's control, go back and read the book of
Job in the Old Testament. where he had to ask permission
from God to touch Job. And from here to the end of the
book, Christ shows his dominion over Satan during the time of
the new covenant and ultimately the destruction of Satan as well
as the glory of salvation, the new Jerusalem. That's salvation,
that's the kingdom of God in Christ. The order of events goes
something like this. First, our Lord's first coming,
followed by a long period of time, symbolized by what is called
1,000 years here. Look at it. It talks about how
he cast the devil and bound him for 1,000 years in verse two.
And then secondly, at the close of the gospel age, which is the
age we're living in now, that leads up to the second coming.
Satan, at the end of that age, he'll be loosed, set loose for
a little season, a short period of time. We don't know exactly
how long, but he'll be set free for a little period of time.
And then thirdly, this is followed by the glorious second coming
of our Savior and our Lord to gather his church unto himself,
judge the world, and make all things new. Now all through this,
I want you to know, all through the Bible, Old Testament and
New, Christ's victory over sin, over Satan, over death, has never
been in question. There's never been an iffy situation. Oh, if this doesn't happen, oh,
if that, no. Ever since the first prophecy,
of the Lord Jesus Christ in Genesis 3.15. You remember what it said
that the seed of woman who is Christ, speaking of his humanity
in connection with his deity, do you remember what it said
that he would do in Genesis 3.15? He would crush the head of Satan. And his victory has never been
in question. He's gonna win, he's already won. We're just
seeing the playing out of all the events that God has purposed
according to his will for his glory and the good of his people. And as long as this world exists,
we know this, that Christ still has some sheep out there that
he's yet to call into the fold. And like I read in 2 Peter chapter
three and verse nine, he's not willing that any of them should
perish, but that all should come to repentance. And he's gonna
bring them so under the preaching of the gospel. It says here in
verse one, John says, I saw an angel. The word angel means a
messenger. Some people say, well, this is
one of the angels, you know, with the wings and all the nature
of angels. Some say this is Christ himself
here. Some say it's a messenger of
Christ. I know this. Whatever the message is, the
messenger has, it's the glory of God in Christ. The power of
Christ. And Christ, He's the angel of
the covenant. He's the angel of God's presence,
the Bible tells us. But it means a messenger. And
He came down from heaven, it says. Now that speaks of the
incarnation of Christ. Salvation is not a mess... a
matter of us climbing our way to God by our works and our efforts. Salvation is a matter of God
bringing himself down to us, down on our level. Christ was
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them under the
law. He was not made a sinner. He
did not become a sinner. He was never defiled or contaminated. or filled with our sinfulness,
but having our sins, the sins of God's people, charged, accounted
to Him, He was made of a woman, a human body and soul, formed
by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and Christ,
the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, united Himself
with that human body and soul without sin, And he walked this
earth as God manifest in the flesh. Why was that necessary? Because in order for him to put
away the sins of his people, he had to die. And God cannot
die. You understand that? Somebody
said, well, that was the death of God. Oh no, it was death of
the God man. And that death is to be attributed
to his humanity. Now it was an act of his whole
person, and I can't explain that to you, but I know this, God
cannot die, but this person who is God did die. I know this, man cannot create
and give life, but this person who is man did create and give
life. That's the glory of Christ, isn't
that awesome? That's the kind of person that
it takes to save sinners like us from our sins. God manifest
in the flesh, God with us. The word made flesh dwelt among
us. And it says here in verse one
that he had the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his
hand. What does the key represent?
Well, it represents the power to open and shut things. Christ
has the power to open and shut the door to heaven, the door
of salvation, because he is the door to heaven, isn't he? He
said, I'm the door. He is the way, the salvation. He said,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by me. He only has the key to open and
shut the door to heaven. He's given this to his preachers.
How? I don't have a key in my pocket
that I can open it up. I preach the gospel. That's the
key. You want to live forever with
Christ? The gospel message of God's free
and sovereign grace, how God saves sinners by the blood of
Jesus Christ alone, not by your works, not by your efforts, not
by your will, but by the will of God in Christ. He went to the cross. Christ
crucified and risen from the dead. In that great transaction,
what did he do? Having my sins charged to him,
he was punished unto death, which became a curse for me and drank
damnation dry by shedding his blood unto death. And out of
that comes a perfect righteousness, the righteousness of God revealed
in the gospel, which God looks at his people has imputed, charged,
accounted to his people, whereby we are declared righteous in
his sight, not guilty. We're all sinners. How can we
stand before a holy God who sees all and knows all, knows our
thoughts, knows our motives, our inner being, and be rightly,
not unjustly, but justly declared righteous in his sight, Not in
your sight or my sight, but in His sight. How can that be? It's
only as we stand before Him in Christ, washed in His blood,
clothed in His righteousness imputed to us. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without works. It's grace. and grace reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ also has the key to death and hell. He is the judge and
he's the standard of judgment. It says here he has the key of
the bottomless pit. This great chain is his power
to bind and hold Satan or anyone else that he chooses to do so. It's not a literal chain. This
is all symbolic language. And we're gonna see the thousand
years is just as symbolic as the rest of it. I'll show you
how. But the bottomless pit, now what
is that? Well, it's not hell. It's not hell. And it's not a
big hole in the ground somewhere here on earth. I got news for
you. Hell is not below your feet.
Hell is an eternal state of separation from God. That's what it is.
You see these movies and read these books and they say, well,
this explorer found the gate to hell. No, he didn't. If he believes salvation by works,
he's already found the gate to hell. Because that's the broad
road that leads to destruction. But this isn't a big hole in
the ground or anything like that. You know what the bottomless
pit is? It's this sin-cursed earth that we live in. That's
right. And those who are in the bottomless
pit connected to it are those who are so connected to this
world that they will not seek the Lord. They will not seek
the things of God. They will not seek salvation
according to God's word. This world is their home. Well,
Christ has the key to it. Satan has no power but that which
he's given by God to be an instrument of God's judgment against the
wicked. Since the fall of man back in
Genesis, Satan has been allowed by God to dominate this fallen
world. In fact, he's called in several
passages the prince of this world, isn't he? He's the great deceiver. God sent him in the Old Testament
and he judged the nations, the Gentile nations as a whole, In that way, the gospel was very
rare. Very rare. But look at verse
two. It says in chapter 20, he laid
hold of the dragon. Now the dragon is Satan. He's
mentioned here by many names. He laid hold of the dragon, the
old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for
a thousand years. Satan is identified here by the
evil nature of his work and his person. The dragon, his ferocious,
an enemy, causes destruction. That old serpent which takes
us back to the Garden of Eden when Satan appeared in the form
of a serpent to Eve and deceived her. Satan was a murderer from
the beginning, the Bible tells us. One of his main weapons in
his warfare against Christ in the church is what? Deception
and darkness. He's a deceiver. He's a liar. He's a liar from the beginning.
He deceives with religious lies. Did you know that? Remember what
Christ told the Pharisees in John 8, 44? You're of your father,
the devil. These were religious people who
were trying to keep the law. He said, you're of your father,
the devil. He's deceived you. The word devil
means slanderer, accuser. Turn back to Revelation 12, if
you will. When in this earlier vision, Satan against the church It speaks of the great dragon
in verse 9 look at Revelation 12 in verse 9 The great dragon
was cast out the old serpent called the devil see the same
as what we're reading there in Revelation 20 and Satan which
deceiveth the whole world That's not everybody without exception
because God still has a people and whom he reveals himself to,
but it's talking about the vast majority of this world. He was
cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.
Verse 10 says, I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has
come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the
power of his Christ. Now what he's talking about is
Christ's first advent into this world where he lived, where he
went to the cross, died, was buried and rose again the third
day. And it says, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and night. Satan, the
great accuser. What does he accuse us of? Well,
he accuses us of being sinners who deserve nothing but death
and hell. How are we gonna fight against that? Doesn't the Bible
say that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God? Doesn't it say that there's none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. How are we gonna fight against the accusations
of Satan? Look at the next verse. Look
at verse 11 of Revelation 12. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and
they loved not their lives unto the death." We overcome Satan
by pleading the blood of Christ, which is the ground of our salvation,
which is our righteousness before God. Because in Christ, God does
not accuse or declare or impute, send us. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justify. If we're
believers, we stand before God in Christ and Satan's accusations
will not stick. Cannot be condemned. We'll go
back to Revelation 20. This angel who had the key to
the bottomless pit, he took hold on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is the devil, and bound him for a thousand years. Think
about it. He laid hold of him. That means
he took hold of him and overpowered him. Bound him for a thousand
years, that means restrained him, hindered him, prohibited
him. It refers to Satan's power as
limited by God. Satan is, you know, you remember
that old book written by another false prophet called Satan is
Alive and Well on Planet Earth? Well, he is alive and well. But
during this thousand years, and it's not a literal calendar years
here. That's why I read that in 2 Peter
3. In God's view of time, which he created, God is not bound
by time. God's eternal. He's the Alpha
and the Omega. Listen, that's hard for us to
wrap our minds around. We can't hardly do it. We don't
have a language that we can speak that really describes eternity. But God's not bound by time.
So one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand
years as one day. And this term a thousand here,
it's used all the way through this chapter. It's what we call
a Hebrew idiom. In other words, it's something
that stands for something else. It stands for a period of time
that no man really knows the exact days and hours and seconds,
but only God knows it. And here it refers to that entire
period of time of the New Testament, the New Covenant, from the first
coming of Christ to the second coming of Christ. And in that
time, Satan has been bound up, limited in his power to deceive. Now, how do you know that? Well,
what happened after Christ died and was ascended unto the Father?
The gospel was preached at Pentecost. And you remember how many were
converted at Pentecost? 5,000. Or 3,000, wasn't it? And then later on, 5,000. And then the gospel began to
go out into the Gentile world. And many of the Gentiles, the
elect, God has a chosen people all over this world out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. And the gospel began to be spread
out. Now it never was in the majority
as far as the population of the world, but there were multitudes
of people. whom God had out there, whom
he chose before the foundation of the world, whose names were
written in the Lamb's Book of Life before this world began.
And he got the gospel to them through men like the Apostle
Paul and Peter and John and James and others, other preachers.
And God began to bring his people into the kingdom. The Gentile
nations were no longer totally deceived. Satan's power was limited.
as it comes to the end of this age. Well, look at verse three.
He cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a
seal upon him. That's God's power to limit him. And he said that he should deceive
the nations no more. The nations refers to the Gentiles.
And again, God has a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue
and nation, Jew and Gentile. That's what it's all about. That's
why we go preach the gospel, go into all the world and preach
the gospel. Tell them he that believeth shall be saved, he
that believeth not shall be damned, all of that. Now when was Satan's
power limited? At the death of Christ. Go to
John chapter 12. When was this casting down of
Satan? When did that begin, this limitation
of his power? John chapter 12. And look around, let's see, verse
31. John chapter 12, verse 31. It says, now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And then Christ said, and I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me. That's
all his sheep. Remember he said in John 6, 37,
all that the father giveth me shall come to me. Him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of him
that sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again at the last day." Read it. And
it says in verse 33, this he said signifying what death he
should die. That's when Satan was bound up.
Bound for a thousand years, which represents that period of time
from his first coming to Christ's first coming to his second coming,
the New Testament age. Christ redeemed His people with
His precious blood. They were all justified in Him
by His righteousness imputed. They'll be called by the Holy
Spirit in the preaching of the gospel, and Satan cannot stop
it. He cannot hinder it. Cast him into this pit, shut
him up, set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations
no more, and then look at what it says. Verse three, cast him
into the bottomless pit, shut him up, set a seal upon him that
he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years
should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little
season for a short period of time. Now all of this is described
in the book of 2 Thessalonians chapter two, and I'm not gonna
go there this morning. But it speaks of a great falling
away. And what that means is this,
that at the end of the age, whatever time that is, and we always go
wrong now when we try to look at history or the newscast and
try to figure out the dates, because you can't do that. Nobody
knows the exact dates. We see certain things that kind
of tip us off that, you know, well, this might be happening
now. But here's what happens. When the gospel began to go out
into the world, churches were established. It wasn't very long
that false preachers, false gospels, false spirits began to take over,
began to infiltrate the church, attack the church. Remember,
Paul opened up the book of Galatians. God had used him to start churches,
true churches, gospel churches, where the truth is preached,
where Christ is preached. in Galatia. But then false preachers
came in, and you know what they were preaching? They were saying
something like this, well now you're saved by grace, but you
gotta do works in order to stay saved, or to be holy, or to be
righteous. They were trying to mix works
and grace, and that's why Paul said, you can't do that in Romans.
He said, if you preach works, it's all works, if you preach
grace, it's all grace. And he opened up the book of
Galatians. He said that if he, if I, we, or an angel from heaven
preach any other gospel than that which we preach, let him
be anathema. And he warned the churches of Galatia of false
preachers, works preachers, free will preachers. That's what that
is. In the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he spoke of those
false preachers who sought to corrupt the minds of their hearers
by taking them away from the simplicity that's in Christ and
end up preaching another Jesus, a false Jesus, by another gospel,
by another spirit. You see that? And that seed of
false gospels, false doctrine, false religion began to be sown.
And then it has come full swing in our day to what is generally
known as Christianity today is not Christianity at all. It's
a false semblance of Christianity. It's Christian in name only,
but they deny the truth. They deny the doctrine of Christ.
And it's getting worse and worse and worse. It's like an old rock song that
I used to sing. There's a whole lot of religion,
but not much truth. People are enthralled with themselves. Humanistic religion. It's all
about you. It's all conditioned on you.
The two of the mainstays of false religion, salvation conditioned
on sinners in some way to some degree at some stage, and righteousness
on a sliding scale. But the true religion of God's
grace says this, all of my salvation was conditioned on Christ who
fulfilled every one of those conditions and secured my salvation
unto final glory. That's the righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel. And then secondly, righteousness
cannot be measured on a sliding scale. It can only be measured
and in Christ. So that we know that God has
appointed a day. in the which he will judge the
world in righteousness, not by your works or not by how you
compare to others, but he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." And
that's Christ. My salvation is in him. Satan, loose for a little season,
for a short period of time, that he might deceive. And as I said,
if you call yourself a Christian, and most people that I know do, are you a Christian according
to the Word of God? Not according to your denomination
now. Your denomination might be wrong, but according to the
Word of God. What is a Christian? I wrote
a book about it. What is a Christian? A Christian
is one who follows Christ, not just some ethereal view or dreamy
view of Christ, but follows Him in who He is and what He has
said and what He has done, according to the Word. And if you don't
follow Him that way, you're under the deception of Satan. That's
it. And it's going to get so bad
prior to the second coming of Christ. This is what he's saying
here. It's going to get so bad that you'll be hard put to find
anywhere where the truth is preached. You'll be able to find churches,
buildings, religious people all over the place, but not where
the true gospel of God's grace, where in the righteousness of
God is revealed. Now I know that sounds all negative
and everything, but listen to me. The truth is being preached. Though by a few, it's here. It's not too late. Seek ye the
Lord while he may be found. Look into his word. Don't just
take somebody's, don't take my word for it. Look into his word. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is he? Who is Jesus Christ? He's God
manifest in the flesh. Believe in what he has accomplished.
What did he accomplish? He didn't die to make you savable.
He didn't die to make salvation possible. He died to secure the
entire and complete salvation of all his people for whom he
lived and died and was buried in a rose again the third day.
That's what he did. He died to bring forth an everlasting
righteousness of infinite value whereby God is just to justify
his people from their sins. Amen.