All right, Revelation chapter
20. This begins, this part of the vision, of this seventh vision
that the Lord gave to the Apostle John, this part begins in verse
seven. And it had already been mentioned,
if you look up in verse three, talking about the loosing of
Satan. It says that the angel, which
is Christ, took hold of Satan, this angel who had the key to
the bottomless pit. Now understand what the bottomless
pit is. It's a metaphor. It's a symbol. It's not a hole in the ground.
It's not hell. He didn't put Satan in hell and
then bring him up out again. It's the deception and darkness
of this world. That's what the bottomless pit
is. And the reason it's called bottomless, because there's no
end to it. A person who is consigned to that, there's no end to it. And so he had a great chain,
all right? That's a leash, that's what it
is. Now this is all symbolic, understand. You know, Satan's
not running around as a spirit with a chain around him, a literal
link, chain around him. But he is on God's leash. And
we know that from the scripture. And it says, verse three, cast
him into the bottomless pit, shut him up, that he should deceive
the nations no more. Now we've talked about that.
You know, when we talk about nations, we're not talking about
governments. We're not talking about geography
necessarily. What we're talking about is the
Gentiles. And what it's saying here is this. God's got a people
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, and he's
gonna save his people. And we talked about this last
week. If you want to think about the
nations, it's anywhere that God's elect are. He's going to call
them out of the world. But for a long time, Satan has
been freed to deceive the nations, but now here he's bound up. Now, I've never gotten into,
you know, people will talk about time, you know, well, when did
this happen? When did that happen? And a lot of times, you can get
in trouble with that if you don't have a particular scripture to
turn to. But I can tell you exactly when
Satan was bound because the scripture says it, and we've looked at
those scriptures, John chapter 12, for example. And that's when
Christ was crucified. That's when Christ established
his work, finished his work on earth. Now that work that was
set up from the very beginning, before the foundation of the
world, Christ fulfilled in time on earth, in his death, burial,
and resurrection, what God purposed before time. And that was when
Satan was bound. We're gonna study that on Wednesday
night when we go into Daniel chapter nine, Daniel's vision
of the 70 weeks. We'll see part of that. That's
where he talks about the Messiah. He finished the transgression,
made an end of sin, brought in everlasting righteousness. So
Satan was bound, and that's what he's talking about. He said in
verse three, he set a seal upon him that he should deceive the
nations no more. That's the gospel going out to
the Gentiles. And it was in their immediate
area. You know, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. After
Pentecost, In Acts chapter 2, there became a great persecution
in Israel, and the believers were scattered throughout the
earth, throughout that area. And Paul was the Apostle Paul
who was before Saul of Tarsus. He was brought to a saving knowledge
of Christ and given the gospel. And he went out as the apostle
to the Gentiles and churches were started like in Galatian,
Ephesus, Thessalonica, places like that. In other words, it
was unbound. Those places were under the judgment
of darkness for years. And so now the gospel went out.
and God's establishing churches. And over a period of time, we've
seen that happen in church history. Now hold on to that thought because
that's important for this. But look at verse three again.
He says, he should save the nations no more till the thousand years
should be fulfilled. The thousand years representing
the time period between Christ's first coming and his second coming.
And then it says, after that, he must be loosed a little season. And that's what we're talking
about here. Look down at verse seven. says when the thousand
years are expired, when that time period, the new covenant
age, when it's coming to its end, all right, when it's expired,
at the end of it, right before the second coming of Christ,
Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. He's no longer bound
because God is going to judge and uh... bring wrath down upon
the unbelieving world and so satan is loosed under the judgment
of god satan is a tool of god's judgment that's what he actually
is to deceive the nations he says look at verse eight he says
he shall and shall go out to deceive the nations which are
in the four quarters And you could say four corners of the
earth either way would be all right according to the original
language Now that's the whole earth. He says the four quarters
of the earth. He mentions the term Gog and
Magog here To gather them together to battle the number of whom
is as the sand of the sea So here's Satan going out again
to deceive the nations the four corners of the earth and While
Satan is bound, the gospel has been widely preached to the Gentile
nations. And like I said, don't try to
get out a map and say, well, here, there, and that's not what
it's talking about. Wherever God's people are, wherever
the sheep are, Christ said, I know my sheep. Why did Christ go through
Samaria in John chapter four? Because that wasn't the way that
a Jew would go if he was going to the destination they were
going to. Well, he had one of his sheep
were there, and he's going to go get them. He said that. He said, the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep, and he gathers them together. He's going
to get his sheep. So the gospel's gone out when,
at the end, just prior to Christ's return, he's going to be loosed
to bring about a short time of global deception. That's what
he's talking about. And the deception, and here's
what we need to understand, the deception is mainly, this deception
is mainly carried off through false religion and false Christianity. False gospels, and I'm going
to show you that. And what's going to happen is this, that
there'll be a lot of religion, but the true gospel in this age,
at this time of this age, the true gospel will be so rare that
it'll be almost virtually gone. Now, we've read about that in
other passages in Revelation. For example, Revelation 11, when
it talks about the two witnesses and how they were overcome and
they lied dead in the street and the world rejoiced, you know,
all that. That's symbolic of this very
same time period. The two witnesses being the gospel,
the church. Two, because two under the law
is the number of witness in the mouth of two or three witnesses.
You know, some people try to go back and they say, well, the
two witnesses, who are they? Well, unless you can turn to
chapter and verse and specify two individuals, you might as
well forget it. Some people surmise, they say, well, that's Enoch
and Elijah because they, you know, they were translated. The
Bible doesn't say that. That's just the speculation of
men. So don't do that. But what do we know about two
witnesses from the scripture? That two is the number of witness.
That's what it is. And so that's why we surmise
that while we take from the scripture rather than surmising that that
is the church, the witness of Christ on the earth. Now he mentions
Gog and Magog. And boy, don't people go to town
with this one. Who is Gog and Magog? First time that the word
Magog is used is a grandson of Noah, but we don't hear anything
else about that person. We know that as history has gone
down through the ages, certain lands have been named after people,
the land of Magog. You know what, Gog, that's a
name. Magog means land of Gog, that's
what it means. Ezekiel is the key, and we're
not going to turn there, but you can read Ezekiel 38 and Ezekiel
39. How does Ezekiel the prophet
use Gog and Magog? Well, what Ezekiel is talking
about is the ungodly Gentile nations that attack Israel. That's how he refers to Gog and
Magog. Gog, the land of Magog. the ungodly
Gentile nations that stand against Israel." Now if we take that
interpretation or we take that fact from the book of Ezekiel
and apply it to what's being said here, what's going on? He's
talking about the satanic nations, unbelieving nations, heathen
nations that stand against the church. So who is this Gog? I'll tell you exactly who it
is. It's Satan. And his land is his followers,
Gog and Magog. On the whole, you see, spiritual
Israel, the church, the true people of God who believe the
gospel, and that's the issue now, they stand in opposition
to the world under the deception of Satan. under the deception
of false religion. The true church includes spiritual
Israel, both Jew and Gentile believers. All right? And what
happens, God sends his gospel out in the spirit of power to
bring his people out of the ungodly world, but at the same time,
at this point in time, he's allowing Satan to gather his ungodly people
his ungodly army, spiritual army, a spiritual darkness that is,
to gather against the true church. And that's what comes down to
what we call the Battle of Armageddon. But look at that phrase where
it says, the number, in verse eight it says, the number of
whom the number of whom is the sand of the sea. Where do you
get that phrase from? Well, Turn to Romans chapter
nine. Now I know I told you to turn
to 2 Thessalonians also, and I'm gonna get to that in just
a moment, but turn to Romans chapter nine. Number is the sand of the sea.
That phrase, the number the sand of the sea, has always in biblical
prophecy been used to describe the natural descendants of Abraham. And especially we could talk
about in Genesis, but also in the book of Isaiah chapter 10.
I've got that referenced in your lesson. But Paul quotes from
that passage in Isaiah here in Romans chapter 9 and verse 27. Now, Romans 9 and Romans 10 and
Romans 11 is a message from God through
the Apostle Paul to the church concerning God's sovereignty
in salvation and the ground of salvation. He starts off in Romans
chapter 9 talking about the fact that the Israelites, the national,
natural, ethnic nation of Israel on the whole was found in unbelief. And then he makes the point that
the true children of God, the spiritual children of God, are
those who are children of the promise. Now, anytime you hear
that promise mentioned, it's talking about Christ. You see,
that's what the promise is all about, the promise God made to
Abraham. Now, if you go back and you read about Abraham, you'll
find that God made a whole lot of promises to Abraham. Some
of those promises were temporal. and applied to earthly things,
all right? Such as the land of Canaan given
to the nation, things like that. But some of those promises were
spiritual and had to do with salvation and not earthly things. In fact, the Bible tells us in
Hebrews 11 that Abraham was not even looking for an earthly land,
even though God promised it to him. He was looking for a heavenly. So the main promise that Paul
is talking about that connects people to Abraham is the promise
of what? Salvation by the grace of God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah. And that's what he's
talking about, children of the promise. And he says, God chooses
his people. He said, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. Is God unfair? God forbid, he
says. And he goes on through there.
And he talks about the fact that much of the nation Israel were
found in unbelief. In fact, the vast majority. And
look at verse 27 of Romans 9. He said, Isaiah also crieth concerning
Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as
the sand of the sea. Now what follows? A remnant will
be saved. That's a small part of the nation.
And, of course, Paul goes on through in Romans 11. I'll turn
back to Revelation 20. What he does, he tells Gentile
believers not to be proud and puffed up and arrogant against
Israelites as if God is never going to save another Israelite
because he's telling him God still has a people out of that
nation. God has elect people out of every nation, tribe, kindred,
tongue, including the Jews. And you remember he talked about
how it first came to the Jews, to the Jew first and the Gentile,
the Greek also. So in Romans chapter 11, he concludes
it. He said, there is a remnant,
but it's a remnant of grace. In other words, the remnant is
not going to be a remnant of unbelievers. You know, people
talk about the Jews being back in the land today. According
to God's promise? No, no, no. According to God's
providence there are and there's a difference. But any Old Testament
passage, now you think about this and you look it up and check
me on this. Any Old Testament passage that talks about the
regathering of Israel in the future is always a regathering
of Israel under the headship of Christ. Not in unbelief. They'll have one head. And that's
not, you know, what's he talking about there? Well, he's talking
about God's elect among the Jews, God's elect among the Gentiles.
Now, what happens is this. Now, whenever he talks about,
be as the numbers, the sand of the sea, he's talking about the
vast majority of Israelites who are Israelites in name only. You know what Israel means, don't
you? The name Israel means those who have prevailed with God.
Jacob got that name when he wrestled with the angel, which was a pre-incarnate
visitation of Christ. Changed his name from Jacob,
supplanter, to Israel, those who prevail with God. Now somebody
asked, well, how in the world can we prevail with God? I'll
tell you exactly how, plead Christ in his righteousness. That's
how a sinner prevails with God. He comes humbly, brought by the
Holy Spirit now. With a new heart, he comes humbly
on his knees, begging for mercy in Christ, pleading the imputed
righteousness of Christ. That's how you prevail with God. And so the true Israel are those
who believe in Christ. Those who preach and believe
and follow Christ, submit to Christ. Paul describes that in
Romans 9. We won't go back there. So what
happens is in the nation Israel, you always had a vast majority
of people who were called the people of God, but they were
the people of God in name only. And out of that vast majority
of people in every generation, there was always a remnant of
true children of God. Now think about that. How many?
I don't know, but it was a small part, he said, a remnant. And
that's the same thing today. Now, why is John bringing that
up here? Well, it's like the true church
today. You know, the people of God are
made up of two parts. There's the people of God who
are already in heaven with the Lord in spirit, and then there's
the true people of God down here on earth. And some of the theologians,
they make up these terms. Some people don't like them.
For example, they talk about the visible church and the invisible
church. And I don't mind that term. I
think it's pretty good because here's what he's simply saying.
Here you've got a gathering of people, just like right here,
even though it's a small gathering. whether it's a small gathering
or a large gathering, the Bible teaches us that in the New Testament
church, this is what we see. You see, you can't see people
in heaven, can you? All right? Everyone in heaven is a true
believer, a truly saved sinner saved by grace. But as you look
around in the visible church, And I understand now, when I
say the visible church, I'm talking about the church, the gathering,
where the true gospel is preached from that pulpit. If you see
a religious gathering of people who call themselves Christian,
but the true gospel is not preached from that pulpit, you don't have
the visible church there. You've got a tear, T-A-R-E. That's
called Satan's tears. All right? The key to understanding
the difference between the true church and the false church is
what gospel do they preach? Now Satan's deception is going
about. And Satan has been attacking
the church for centuries, but it hadn't worked. So what's Satan
doing now? He's attacking from within. He
began it back in John's day. John said it in 1 John 2. He
said, the spirit of Antichrist is already here. Incidentally,
that's the only time in the Bible you'll see the word Antichrist
in 1 John 2. It's not used in the book of
Revelation. But there is a spirit of Antichrist.
And remember what John said in 1 John 2 and verse 18 and 19.
He said, they went out from us. In other words, they went out
from the true visible church. But they were not of us. They
forsook the gospel and adhered to a false gospel. They were
like those Israelites back under the old covenant who were Israelites
in name only, but they denied the true God of Israel. But there was a remnant, he said,
that knew God. Well, today we have people who
are Christians in name only, but they denied the doctrine
of Christ. And that's Satan's deception. That means this. It means that Man has been deceived,
or many, most have been deceived, this worldwide deception through
Gog and Magog, Satan and his army. Man has been deceived to
forsake the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace, salvation
by grace through the blood and the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Satan sends out his ministers. Turn to 2
Corinthians chapter 11. Satan sends out his ministers
to deceive. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
11, verse 13. Now this happened in Corinth.
You have people who call themselves apostles. People who call themselves
preachers of truth. but they preach the false gospel.
And the false gospels today, what does it do? It puts salvation
in the hands of men and not in the hands of God. It makes salvation
conditioned on sinners and not on Christ. It puts salvation
contingent upon man's will and not God's will. It's all about
man's works and not Christ's work. It's all about man's righteousness
and not Christ's. And look at 2 Corinthians chapter
11 verse 13. He says, for such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. And the tense of the verb of
that transforming is a temporary change. And you know what that
means? It means that at certain times
they can say the right things, but they can't stay with it.
And the reason they can't stay with it is because that's not
where their heart is. And look at it, he says, verse 14, and
he says, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. You know, when Satan tempted
the Lord, remember one of the things he did on the mouth? He
quoted scripture. Satan can quote scripture. And
then look on, he says, verse 15, therefore it is no great
thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
Now, they can preach the right thing at certain times, but they
can't stay with it. So this is the whole issue. Now
go back to Revelation 20. So he says, verse nine, he says,
and they went up on the breadth of the earth, that's covering
the whole earth. Now this shows you that this is not a physical
army in a physical battle to be fought with tanks and airplanes
and guns, because they don't meet in one valley, they cover
the earth. This is a worldwide battle, this
is a worldwide deception. encompassed the camp of the saints,
they surrounded, the camp of the saints is the heavenly Jerusalem.
And I'll get to that next week. The beloved city, that's heavenly
Jerusalem. We'll see that in just a minute.
Fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them, that's
the wrath of God. And the devil that deceived them,
verse 10, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. These
are all emblems of God's eternal damnation and wrath upon the
unbelieving, upon Satan. It says, where the beast and
the false prophets, Satan's two henchmen, you know, the beast,
that's ungodly governments, the false prophet, ungodly religion,
and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Now I'm
gonna come back to that next week, but I want you to turn
to 2 Thessalonians 2. And I want to show you this parallel. Just about in every generation,
even among true believers, people have thought that the Lord's
coming back in their day. We kind of think that, don't
we? We always say we're getting closer
and closer. Well, that's true. As time goes on, we're getting
closer to it. The church at Thessalonica had
some people who took it literally and said, Christ is coming back
before we die. And what they did is they quit
their jobs and quit making a living, went off, lived in a cave. And
you know what happened? They got hungry. And so what did they do? They
came to the church. Feed us. If you read about that
in 1 Thessalonians, you know what Paul said to them? He said,
if you don't work, You don't eat. Right? And so he looks at
the church here and he begins, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
he says, now look at verse 1 of 2 Thessalonians 2. He says, we
beseech you, we beg you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ is coming. He says, and by our gathering
together unto him. He's going to gather his church.
That you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither
by spirit, that is in your spirit. Don't be shaken over this, nor
by word. If somebody comes along and preaches
it, you know, if you see some guy out in the street with a
sandwich sign, the end is near, you know, all that, don't be
shaken by that. Nor by letter as from us. Now
I believe the scholars are right on this, that Paul is referring
to false preachers who sent letters to the different churches and
wrote his name or Peter's name on forged ladders. He says, nor
as letters as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand,
that it's coming in your day. Verse three, let no man deceive
you by any means. For that day shall not come except
there come a falling away first. The word there in the original
is apostasy. It's a falling away. The falling
away refers to the visible church falling away from the truth. Apostatizing from the gospel. being infiltrated and going against
the true gospel, leaving the truth. Now again, back in 1 John
chapter 2, remember what he said? They were at one time with us,
but they were not of us. They went out from us. He said,
had they been of us, true believers, they would have no doubt have
continued with us, but they left. All right? He says, and that
man of sin be revealed. That man of sin, I believe he's
talking about is that spirit of Antichrist, the false gospel. Now, a lot of people say, well,
he's talking about one guy here and we got to look for one guy.
Well, let me tell you something, whether it's one guy or just
a spirit, it doesn't matter. What's their message? That's
the issue. I don't believe it's one guy. The man of sin, I believe
he's talking about, is the false prophet. But I'm gonna go over
that some more later on, too, and we're gonna deal with that
on Wednesday night, too. The son of perdition, damnation,
see? False gospels lead to what? The
broad road that leads to what? Destruction. In other words,
if a sinner is believing and following a false gospel wherein
the righteousness of God is not revealed, the imputed righteousness
of Christ, as the only ground and cause of salvation? That's
perdition. Verse four, who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped,
so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. Now in the New Testament, the
temple of God, the dwelling place of God, is Christ and his church. It's not the Jerusalem temple,
the temple in physical Jerusalem. The glory departed from there,
remember? Remember when the Babylonian
Empire conquered Jerusalem? That whole thing was destroyed.
The Ark of the Covenant was destroyed. I was reading on the internet,
they said they found it the other day. You know, they've been finding
that thing for years. And I know Indiana Jones found
it. Because I saw that movie, how about you? I love that movie,
but it's nothing biblical about it. The ark didn't have some
kind of electric plug in it or anything like that. But see,
all that stuff is just fiction. The glory departed. The glory
will never depart from the church. Christ said, I'll never leave
you or forsake you. Christ is the glory of the church,
see? But he says, he sitteth in the
temple of God. What's he talking about? He's
talking about the visible church here on earth. It'll be taken over
by the false prophet, by false gospels. And the falling away. Now we'll come back to this now.
That great apostasy is this. It's Satan being loosed to deceive
the world. And his main work of deception
is false Christianity that comes in the name of Christ but denies
the truth. And there's no time in history
where the people of God, the true people of God, need to be
skillful in the word of righteousness in order to discern good and
evil. You understand? We'll go into more detail on
that next time. All right.