Let's go ahead and get started
on our lesson. We're going to be looking at
Revelation chapter 20. I've been going through this
passage kind of slow because there's so much in it historically. I'm going to go back and read
from verse 1, but we're going to focus on verses 5 through
6 this morning on the first resurrection, what's called the first resurrection. Boy, we've had a week, haven't
we? with everybody. I know I tried to get in touch
with most people and with everybody and see if everybody was okay
and I think so. I know Debra and Felton, they've
been out of power and I don't know if it's back on, their power's
back on. I know Jason with his business has been out of power
and still out of power. And then Randy, he decided he wanted
to go to the hospital. But I think he's okay. We're just thankful that the
Lord took care of us in all this, and so we thank Him for that. I'll make some announcements
before the main service at 11, too, so about this week. We're going to have our Wednesday
service, and the message will start at 6.30, but we'll talk
about that in a few, before the 11 o'clock message, all right? Is there any prayer requests
that we need to mention specifically? Okay, let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, how thankful
we are for your mercy and kindness, your loving kindness, covenant,
and kindness in Christ for bringing us together under the preaching
of the gospel, the preaching of the truth of your word, And
we pray, dear Lord, that you would make it effectual to our
minds and our hearts, our affections, our wills, that you might cause
us to understand more and more the sovereignty of your purpose
and your will, but most of all, the gospel message of salvation
through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
how we're so blessed above anything else that we could imagine. to
be justified through him who is our righteousness, to be cleansed
from our sins in his precious blood. And Lord, that we have
the power of the Holy Spirit in the first resurrection, the
new birth, that we have ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts
and minds to understand and know the love of God, which passes
understanding, and that you sent your son into this world to save
us from our sins. And so we stand upon no other
ground of worthiness but his righteousness imputed. And we
praise you, your name. And dear Lord, we thank you for
bringing us through safely through these storms. We know that there
are people still suffering and we do pray for them and we pray
in thanksgiving for the ones you've sent to help clean up
this situation. But we know it is all of your
good providence and your sovereign will that we might understand
more of your goodness and mercy and grace in Christ. We pray
for the sick and the afflicted. We pray, dear Lord, in thanksgiving
for healings and recoveries that you granted. We continue to pray
for those who are going through the trials and infirmities of
the flesh. Now guide us and direct us as
we open your word. Teach us, dear Lord, for it's
in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's go back up to verse
1. I'm just going to read through
and make a few comments. And then, as you know, this chapter
20 is the beginning of another vision that God grants the Lord
Jesus Christ in Revelation 20. And from here to the end of the
book, chapter 22, that's the final, the seventh vision. These
are different angles, you might say, of the same event, and the
event is the last days, the time period between the first coming
of Christ and the second coming of Christ. The New Covenant age
is what the Bible calls it, the last days that began at the resurrection
of Christ and his ascension unto glory, and it concludes at his
second coming. That's what the last days are.
We've been living in the last days since the resurrection of
Christ. And these seven visions of Revelation,
as they go on, they show us different angles. of that last age. I heard an illustration that
helped me understand it. And since a lot of us are watching
football games now on TV, well, how many cameras do you think
they have at a football game when they televise a football
game? I don't know how many. Somebody said at least eight,
but probably more than that. But let's say they have eight
cameras around on a football game, and every And every camera
is focused on the same exact game, isn't that right? But if
you see one camera, you're going to see one angle of it. If you
see another camera, you're going to see another angle of it. But
it's the same event. And that's what this is. Here
are these seven visions. It's like seven different angles
of the same event. This is not a historical progression,
even though there are things that are granted into the future. But the main issue of Revelation
is the main issue of the whole Bible, and that's the gospel.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, how God saves sinners. So whatever
thing you read in the book of Revelation, whether it's a blessing
or if it's a manifestation of the wrath of God, something terrible,
The whole thing is meant to turn our eyes towards Christ and salvation,
conditioned, fulfilled, and completed, and one in and by Him. The whole
thing is to show us that we have no righteousness but Christ. And that's the only salvation.
When you read things in the book of Revelation about the terror
of God's wrath, about Satan's workings and his followers. Satan's workings and Satan's
followers are all meant to turn us away from Christ, but we know
that because of the grace and the glory and the power of God,
that cannot be done for God's chosen people. We're going to
look to Christ. Now look at verse 1 of Revelation
20. He says, I saw an angel. That's
a messenger. come down from heaven, having
the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
And this angel is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He's the one
who has the power of the keys. The opening and closing of any
avenue lies in the power of the one who has the key. There's several passages of scriptures
that talk about Christ having the key. The key of authority,
the key of power. He has the keys of death and
hell. He has the power. You see, Satan's power is limited. We always have to understand
that. You know, sometimes people and preachers are bad at this.
They kind of indicate that Satan is the evil counterpart of God. That's not true. Satan is evil. But he's in no way equal with
God on any level. Remember back in the book of
Job, he had to come and ask God's permission to touch Job. He had
to have God's permission. Satan is a created being. People
talk about Satan as if he's everywhere. Satan is not everywhere. He's
limited. Now, his influence is everywhere all over this world.
We'll see that as we go through Revelation 20. And his main influence
is to do what? We'll turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. Now, a lot of people confuse
what I believe the Bible teaches as the natural sinfulness and
bent of of fallen human beings with the workings of Satan. They confuse those two things.
For example, the immorality that overruns our world. Some of you are not old enough
to remember the old comedian Flip Wilson. You remember Flip
Wilson on TV? Remember what he used to say?
He used to play that girl named Geraldine. And anytime Geraldine
would do something bad, she'd say, the devil made me do that.
No, he didn't. That's just old Geraldine doing
what Geraldine naturally does. And that's the way it is with
the immorality of the world. That's just man acting out his
sinful nature. But Satan who is called the God
of this world because the Lord has allowed him to influence
this world, he has his goal, and look at it. Look at 2 Corinthians
4 and verse 3. Now this is key. If you want
to know your enemy, you who believe, if you want to know your enemy,
listen to this. He says, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid
to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not." Now, there's Satan's goal.
His goal is to keep you away from the gospel. And if he can
have you in a false church, listening to a false gospel, relishing
in your morality to keep you away from the true gospel, that's
where he'll have you. And he says, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. What is the gospel? That's the
key to everything. The gospel is the revelation
of the righteousness of God, the scripture says. That's his
righteousness imputed. That's the merits of the obedience
unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ to save his people from
their sins. So Paul writes in verse 5 of
2 Corinthians 4, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus,
the Lord. I'm not going to come here and
tell you all about what I've done for God or what you should
do for God. I'm going to talk about Christ.
and what he has done to save his people from their sins. That's
what the gospel is. The good news is not about you,
it's not about me, it's about Christ. And that's what people
are missing today. And he says here, he says, we
preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, Lord, and ourselves,
your servants, for Jesus' sake. In other words, I'm just a servant.
If you went to a rich person's house, somebody who hired servants,
and you're going to eat dinner with the rich man or the rich
woman, the center of attention is on the owner of the house,
not on the servants. They're just serving you the
food. So the center of attention is not to be on me, even. Just
like John the Baptist, you know, he pointed his followers not
to himself, but to Christ. He said, they heard John speak
and they followed Jesus. That's the goal. So he says in
verse six, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in the person
and work of Christ. That's what it's all about. Now
go back to Revelation 20. So Christ has the key of the bottomless
pit. The bottomless pit is the deception
and darkness of this world. It's not a hole in the ground.
It's not hell. You see, the bottomless pit is where we live. Now let
me tell you, what am I talking about? It's talking about the
deception and darkness of this world. Now the church, the true
church, is the light that shines in darkness. But while Christ,
before he comes back again, we're in the world, Christ told his
disciples, we're in the world, but we're not of the world. In
other words, we're not the, as the book of Revelation would
say in the original language, we're not earth dwellers. What
does that mean? That means we're not citizens of the world. This
world is not our home. We're pilgrims, like Abraham
was a pilgrim. And we're citizens of a heavenly
kingdom. Later on, it's called the New
Jerusalem. That's another name for the church, for the true
holy city. You know, Satan has a city. It's
called Babylon. The mother of all harlots. And
it's also called Sodom. It's also called Egypt. And so
what do you have there? You have lost people who are
deceived in the darkness of this world. They're tied to this world.
This world is everything. And this world is their God.
And it's a false God. Even those who claim to be Christians
but who do not believe in the doctrine of Christ. But Christ
has his city, and it's called Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem,
heavenly Jerusalem. It's not over in Palestine now.
It's not the city they're fighting over now, okay? It's a heavenly
Jerusalem. Read Hebrews chapter 12, for
example, and Galatians chapter 4. So he has the key to the bottomless
pit. It means he has control. And
he says, and a great chain in his hand. Now this is symbolic
language now. This chain is the leash on which
he put Satan. In verse 2, he laid hold of the
dragon. That dragon is a symbol for Satan. He has many names.
The old serpent. Remember the serpent that appeared
to Eve and deceived her. The devil, that's the accuser.
The slanderer. And he says, Satan, that's the
adversary, and bound him a thousand years. That's symbolic. A thousand years is symbolic
of that time period. This is a Hebrew idiom. It's
not a literal calendar years, but it's symbolic of that time
period between the first coming of Christ and the second coming
of Christ. And remember I gave you the example last week, even
in Western poetry, romantic poetry, you know, just like the man tells
his wife, he said, I'll love you a thousand years. Well, does
that make her angry? Because she might look back at
him and say, well, why not a thousand and one, or why not a hundred
thousand? A thousand years is a way of
saying I'll love you forever. And that's the way we use the
term. Well, that's what it is here. It's not a literal calendar
1,000 years, all right? It's a time period indicated
by that. Verse 3, cast him into the bottomless
pit, shut him up, and set a seal on him. He's locked in that he
should deceive the nations no more. The nations meaning the
Gentiles. That's a way of referring to the Gentiles. The gospel truth
resided in Israel under the old covenant, even though they rejected
it now. You need to understand that.
The gospel truth resided in Israel in type and picture and shadow. For example, I know they had
the old covenant law that condemned them, but they also had the Passover
feast, which was a picture of who? Of Christ. The Lamb of God. Remember God said, when I see
the blood, I'll pass over you? Well, that was a picture. Animal
blood couldn't do anything for him. It was ceremonial, it was
temporal, it was symbolic, but it pointed to another who is
greater than anything physical, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God. So see, if we stand before God,
washed in the blood of Christ, Now what does that mean? What
can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
So if we stand before God, having our debt, our sin debt paid as
it was imputed, charged, accounted to Christ, that's what it means
to be washed in his blood. It means our debt's paid. What
is the debt of sin? Death, eternal death. The wages
of sin is death. Why do we die physically? It's
a consequence of death. But we need to be saved from
what the Bible calls the second death. That's eternal death.
Eternal separation from God. What can save me from that death?
The blood of Christ. His death. In my place. In my
stead. As my surety. He paid my debt.
And what do I get in return? I get a righteousness that answers
the demands of God's justice. I stand before God justified. That means not guilty. That means
righteous. Because of what? Because of anything
I've done? No. What makes me righteous before
God? Because that's what you have
to be to be saved. You're not going to be saved unless you're
righteous before God. Now, where are you going to find
righteousness? Anything you do or decide, walking
in an aisle, getting baptized, will that? No, none of that will
do it. There's only one place you can find righteousness, and
that's in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so I stand
in him, not having a righteousness of my own by the law, that's
what Paul wrote in Philippians 3, but that which is through
his faithfulness, Christ's faithfulness, to die in my place. All right,
now, the devil is locked in, verse 3, that he should deceive
the nations no more. In other words, now the gospel
was confined to Israel all those years, 1,500 years, but now,
It's going out to the nations. And since, you might go back
and look at Pentecost in Acts chapter two. Peter stood in Jerusalem
there and he preached to people from all kinds of different countries,
different languages, and they heard the gospel in their own
language. And then it shot out into the
world. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles,
he began to preach in the Gentile areas. And then over history,
the gospel has gone out over the world. That's what it means. Satan has been bound during that
period of time so that he could deceive the nations no more till
the thousand years be fulfilled. Until the end of this age when
Christ comes again and after that he must be loosed a little
season. Now we're going to be talking
about that later on more. But what's going to happen, here's
what he's saying, is as we draw closer to the end of the age,
closer to the second coming of Christ, there's going to be more
and more deception because Satan's going to be loosed for a little
season. Now turn to Matthew chapter 24
with me. This is part of what we're going
to be studying eventually on Wednesday night on preaching
Christ in the end time. But here's what's happening.
I'm not, I won't be, I'm going to go verse by verse through
Matthew 24, for example, because that's a passage where Christ
teaches the disciples about the last days. He starts out with
the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. And then he goes
to the second coming. So there is a switch here, but
I want to show you something here. He says, verse four, Now
this is called the Olivet Discourse because he taught this from the
Mount of Olives. Look at verse three, he says,
And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came
unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?
Now he's talking about the destruction of the temple and the destruction
of Jerusalem specifically there. What shall be the sign of thy
coming? and the end of the world. So they're asking about when
will the temple be destroyed? When will Jerusalem be destroyed?
And then they're asking about the end of the world. So there's,
you've got a two-fold question here. When are you coming back? All right. Verse four, and Jesus
answered and said to them, take heed that no man deceive you. Verse five, now listen to this.
This is the first thing he brings out here. For many shall come
in my name saying, I am Christ, I am the Messiah, and shall deceive
many, and you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that
you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass,
but the end is not yet. Now, we're gonna stop there in
Matthew 24. But isn't it interesting that when he talks about the
end times, the thing that he tells them to watch out for is
religious deception in the name of Christ. Now, you know, everybody
today, if you read most of the literature on the second coming,
the end times, and I'm telling you folks, the religious bookstores,
I don't, it's full of junk. I mean, I, you know, I'm not
just saying that to be critical or to be negative. Most of it's
science fiction. They take these symbols and they
make them literal and they talk about this and that. Listen to
me. Most people today, when they think about the world getting
worse up until the second coming, what do they think of? They think
of more immorality. Not so. Now, does that mean that
there's not going to be more immorality? The world's always
been immoral. Now, true, we see it more often
and see it in vivid technicolor on television and on the internet. It's closer to us, you know.
You know, I hear my mom and dad used to talk about the 40s and
the 50s and what a great time it was. And we used to think,
well, you know, everything was, you remember the old TV show
Father Knows Best? That's the way the world was.
Well, it was somewhere, but it wasn't like that everywhere.
I mean, there were mass murders and rapes and all kinds and drug
wars and all kinds of things going on in the world in the
40s and the 50s. And of course, in the 40s, you
can think about Adolf Hitler and the war and all of that.
Immorality has always been the case in this world. But what's going to get worse
as we approach the second coming? Now, go back to Revelation 20. there's going to be more and
more religious deception. I'm going to show you that as
we go through Revelation and then as we go through Matthew
24. More and more religious deception and the worst deception is religion
that comes in the name of Jesus Christ but denies the truth of
Christ. That's the biggest thing. Now
look back at Revelation 20. Satan's going to be loose for
a little season and he's for a little while. We don't know
how long. Somebody says, well, are we already there? Well, there's
a lot of religious deception, but you know, I can't give you
a cutoff date or a starting date or anything like that. Let no
man deceive you. That's what Christ said. In other
words, you get into the Bible, get into the word of God. Don't
you say, well, my denomination, who cares what your denomination,
but if it's not in the word of God, Well, I grew up believing,
who cares what you grew up believing if it's not in the word of God?
The word of God is our only rule and standard and authority. You say, well, people interpret
it differently. I know they do. That's why I wrote that book
on rightly dividing the word. You know, there are rules of
interpretation. It's not you just go off on a
corner on your own and just use your own judgment, because man
by nature will not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
But look here, he says in verse four, I saw thrones and they
that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. That's the
gospel, because the gospel is a judgment. We talked about that
last week. I saw the souls of them that
were beheaded for a witness of Jesus. That's the martyrs. And
for the word of God, they preached the truth. and which had not
worshipped the beast. The beast was the agent of Satan
in false governments, idolatrous governments and economies. Neither his image, neither had
received the mark on their foreheads. That's the 666, which is symbolic
of false doctrine, false gospels. And in their hands, the forehead
represents the mind, the hand represents the works of man. In other words, idols are the
works of men's hands. And so if you're worshiping an
idol, you have the symbol of 666 on your forehead and your
mind and on your hand. It's not a literal 666, but that's
what it symbolizes. It's 666 because of the power
of it and the depth of it. And it talks about Satan the
dragon and the beast and then the false prophet, the evil trinity
there. Whereas in the gospel of Christ,
Your fellowship is with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. That's
the seven, seven, seven, you might say. That's the perfection. Six is less than perfect. And
that's what man always is in himself. We're less than perfect.
Again, we have no righteousness. We have no perfection. We have
no holiness, but that which we can find in Christ. That's where the seven comes
in. So he says, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand
years. But look at verse five, he says, But the rest of the
dead, now the rest of the dead here, refers to those who were
lost in their sins. And it says they lived not again
until the thousand years were finished. Now, the rest of the
dead describes the unsaved, and it says they lived not again
until the thousand years were finished. The word until there
doesn't mean till the finished period of time was done. It means
while. And it states that while this
period of time was going on, these remained spiritually dead. You know the Bible says that
man by nature is spiritually dead. Remember in Ephesians 2.1,
and you hath he quickened, quickened mean given life, who were dead
in trespasses and sins. And so these were dead, they
remained spiritually dead in an unregenerate state, not born
again. and they did not live spiritually
in and by Christ. They're the remnant of mankind
who remain in unbelief without Christ and without hope. And
then he talks about this is the first resurrection. First means
foremost. Now, somebody said it could refer
to the order of time or order of value and preeminence, either
way, but it doesn't matter. What it is, the first resurrection
refers to those who live by Jesus Christ. It's the new birth is
what it is. How do we know that? Now, some
people, this is the passage of scripture that some people use
to say, well, there's going to be two resurrections. You know,
Christ is going to come again, he's going to rapture the church,
and then we're going to have a seven-year tribulation period,
then he's going to come back and reign on earth for a thousand
years or something like that. And there are different views
of that. None of those views came into existence until the
early 1800s. Did you know that? And it wasn't
from the scriptures, from the views of men. And so they say,
well, he's going to come again, then he's going to leave, and
then he's going to come back again. That's two second comings
of Christ. A second and a third coming,
actually. But that's not what this teaches. The first resurrection
is the resurrection of believers in the new birth. Those for whom
Christ died, for whom he died, was buried, and raised again.
That's a resurrection, but that was a legal resurrection. When
Christ rose, his people rose, because he represented them.
Well, they are all going to have life given to them by Christ.
They're going to be born again by the Spirit. Now, how do you
know that? Well, look, verse 6. Blessed
and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On
such, the second death hath no power. Now, what's the second
death? Well, that's eternal damnation. What's the first death? Well,
you can talk about death in different ways. The Bible says that we
all died in Adam, didn't it? Romans 5 and verse 12. Whereas
by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, for that all
sinned, that's in Adam. In other words, death came by
Adam's disobedience. And so that when we're born into
this world, we're born spiritually dead. Now, that doesn't mean
that we're physically. I mean, we have a mind, we have
affections, we have wills, we have a heart, but not spiritually. We have no desires for God, not
the true and living God. I mean, man has a natural bent
towards religion. The scripture teaches that. Now,
some people spend their life denying that. You know what an
atheist is, don't you? An atheist is a person who shoved
out what he can know of God. That's what he's done. Really,
it's kind of like a misnomer. I mean, why are you against something
you don't... Atheism means against God. Why
are you against something you don't believe exists? I mean,
that's like a boxer beating the air, isn't it? But man's natural
desire in his conscience to find a God, to find purpose, to find
meaning in life. It is all misdirected and deceptive
to himself because of his own sin. Therefore, God has to intervene
with revelation. And that's what this is talking
about, the first resurrection. It's when God comes in power,
sovereign power, by the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the
truth. The light of the knowledge, remember
in 2 Corinthians 4, 6? The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and brings a
person under the preaching of the gospel and gives them life. And that's the first resurrection.
Now, that's how we're saved from the second death. We're going
to die physically. It's a point in a man wants to
die. But we're not going to die eternally if we're in Christ.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies, it's Christ that died. And so he says, this is
the first resurrection. Verse six, blessed and holy is
he that hath part in the first resurrection. Those who are born
again by the Spirit are those who believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we're blessed of God. In
other words, what he's saying here is we cannot attribute any
of that to ourselves. It's all attributed to God. It's
all attributed to Christ. My righteousness is Christ. My
life is Christ. It didn't come from me. And then
holy, what does that mean? Does that mean I'm morally pure
now? No. Holiness doesn't mean moral perfection
or moral purity. Holiness means separate. That's what the word means. When
God brings a sinner under the preaching of the gospel and gives
that sinner life to believe, that sinner is separated from
the world. That's what that means. He's
different, she's different. Now there may be other areas
of that we could talk about, but here, you remember the blind
man said, I once was blind, but now I see. I was part of the
blind world, now I'm part of the seeing world. I'm separate,
that's holiness. And I can remember, listen, I
remember when I first began to hear the true gospel, I was in
religion, I was in seminary, just as deceived as I could be,
and I first began to hear the true gospel. Do you know I hated
it? I told my mother, I said, there's
no way I'll believe that. And now I've been preaching it
for over 30 years. Now what happened? Did I become
a better person? No. Did I make the dead? No. God did. And it's the first
resurrection. I've been risen from the dead
in that sense, spiritually speaking. Now there's a resurrection of
the dead later on. That's the second coming. But
there's a first resurrection. I've been saved from the second
death. He says, verse 6, on such the second death, have no power. There's no power. But they shall
be priest of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand
years. To be a priest from God doesn't mean that I wear a funny
collar and you come to me and confess in a booth. That's a
false priest. To be a priest unto God is a
sinner saved by grace. Now listen to me and I've got
in your lesson here some passages you can look up for this. Hebrews
10 is one of the most beautiful. To be made a priest unto God
means that you're a sinner saved by grace and you have free, unhindered,
unfettered access to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's
what it means. We have one high priest and that's
Jesus Christ. No man could ever take that. That's the God man. And we who
believe in him, we have free unfettered access to God in prayer,
in worship, in service, and it's all grounded upon one merit. the imputed righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not us making ourselves
clean enough to get to God. We can't do that. It's not ourselves
trying to say, well, I had a good day, so I feel like I'm worthy. No, worthy is the lamb that was
slain. He's our worthiness. You see
that? And those who have been born again, who have experienced
the first resurrection, who are saved from the second death,
We're priests unto God, and we reign with him a thousand years.
We reign with Christ in the sense that we're members of his kingdom,
and we're ambassadors of Christ. Okay.