Revelation chapter 20, and we'll read verses one to three. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and 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. May God bless his word this morning. Now it's very rare for tyrannical kings and rulers to be brought to justice for their evils, at least in this world. And we could think of examples of that, great tyrants responsible for the slaughter of thousands if not millions of people who really don't face justice in this world. Even when their regimes are overcome, they often have the resources to escape trial and execution. You think of how many Nazis escaped to South America and different situations like that. But in the rare instances when a powerful tyrant is captured, and humiliated. It is the cause of great wonder and astonishment to all who behold it, especially those who suffered under his oppression. And the few occasions, it's an astonishing thing to someone who once had so much power, power over men's lives, to then have that power taken away and to be punished for it. Well, in Isaiah chapter 14, there's a prophecy given there concerning the mighty king of Babylon. But it goes beyond any earthly king to a being called Lucifer, the son of the morning. You look at Isaiah 14. Well, let's say verse 9. Isaiah 14 verse 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth. It hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy vials. The worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Verse 12, how art thou fallen from heaven? O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations? And so this is a being who was even from heaven, but cut down to the ground. And so we read about this, his original majesty, this heavenly glory. Then of his proud rebellion, when you read from verse 13 onwards, he said in his heart, will ascend to heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God etc he exalts himself in his pride over the Lord and Then he's casting out of heaven to the ground it says in verse 12, but then furthermore to hell he is cast down to and You know it says there in verse 12. He did weaken the nations. This is the devil and one of the things that he does is to weaken nations and You know, it used to be said of England, God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet. And I believe God did make England and the British Empire mighty. It was God's doing. But for an empire that has turned its back upon God and embraced Satan, they've become weakened because he weakens the nations. He weakens them. But it says about this, the response of this in verse 16, when he's, well, verse 15, thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Verse 16, they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? and so on there, but it says they shall narrowly look upon this. Like when you see something that, am I really, am I seeing things? And you look closer, is this really happening? And they'll narrowly look, and they'll really consider this, because it's such an astonishing thing. and I believe will be part of this group who will be considering the devil as he's brought down, as he's bound, and as he's cast into the bottomless pit. An amazing time. And so since the grand primeval promise made in Eden of the woman's seed bruising the serpent's head, Genesis 3.15, The saints are the most high, whether they be angels, whether they be human, have anticipated the day when the archenemy of God and mankind would be finally defeated. This is the day that the saints have looked for for 6,000 years. Because for 6,000 years, this world has suffered under the cruel reign of, as William Shrubsole calls him in Christian memoirs, the black tyrant. Of course, we can't use that type of language these days, but black is an evil and all that the darkness represents there. he will be defeated. And in fact, the defeat of Satan was effected through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. His life, his death, resurrection from the dead, and his ascension to glory. Hebrews 2 verse 14 says, for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. So why did Jesus come? To destroy the devil? We can look at other reasons. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I'm chief, and all the rest of it. But he came to destroy the devil. 1 John 3, verse 8. He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. He came to destroy the devil. He came to destroy the works of the devil. who has power of death, or who did have it. And so Golgotha became the scene of the greatest victory ever accomplished in all of time and space. The greatest victory, where the Lord Jesus Christ, as Colossians 2.15 says, spoiled principalities and powers. He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. What a triumph. I mean, people thought that the cross was the defeat of the Lord Jesus. No, it was his triumph, his greatest triumph. And these principalities and powers, these are the fiendish hordes of hell with their prince Satan. And so the devil's defeated, end of story. Well, not exactly. And we can put it this way. the de jure, that is the legal defeat of Satan, was accomplished at the cross, but the de facto, that is the actual and the complete fulfillment, will not take place until the second coming of Christ. There's still a phase of this to play out, even though all that was needed for it to be accomplished was performed at Calvary. Now, when we studied Revelation 19, we saw that how when the Lord comes at the battle of Armageddon, he'll defeat all the armies of the beast, all these rebels, he'll slay them with the sword of his mouth, and then he will cast the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire. And you know, when you read chapter 19, you think, yeah, the beast and the false prophet, but what about the dragon? Well, You know, these two agents of Satan, they'll be eternally damned to the lake of fire at that moment, at his coming. Christ has a different sentence for their Lord, Satan, who has yet another role to fulfill in God's plan for the ages. Something else has to play out. but we read what will happen to him at the beginning of the millennium. And among all the many blessings that will come upon earth during the millennium, one of the foremost is the banishment of Satan for its entire duration. for the 1,000 years. Indeed, Satan's binding and banishment are a necessary element of the Messiah's earthly reign, for there can be no rival king or kingdom present, whether human or angelic. He has to be banished. There will be one king there'll be one kingdom, and there'll be global obedience to the king. And we studied that a little bit last week. And if there's any infraction, if there's any violation or crime committed, there'll be justice immediately. Immediately. No one will get away with any sin during that time. It'll be a perfect kingdom of righteousness. Okay, and so, Now, as we come to chapter 20 and these verses and the following ones, these verses clearly refute the allegorical, non-literal interpretations of the millennium, amillennialism and postmillennialism, which we talked a little bit about last week. Historically, the early church for the first few centuries since the apostles was almost universally premillennial. accepting the clear scriptural teaching that Christ would return before establishing his kingdom and banishing Satan. That's what pre-millennial means. It means he'll come before the millennial kingdom. But things changed. And particularly a major culprit was Augustine. from 354 to 430 AD. He's responsible for the spiritualized view of the kingdom where Satan was bound during Christ's earthly ministry. And the first resurrection, as it's talked about in chapter 20 here, is not a future resurrection, a bodily resurrection, it's the new birth, they say. And the 1,000 years is the present inter-adventual period between the two comings of Christ. So we're now in the 1,000 years, and this is the so-called spiritual millennium. You need to be careful when you spiritualize that you don't tell spiritual lies, as it's been said. And so this stemmed from his view that the visible Catholic or universal, as they call it, church is the kingdom of God on earth, set forth in his work the city of God. And it's corrupted Christianity or Christendom, professing Christendom. Roman Catholicism, of course, they became the dominant professing Christianity and sought to destroy all those who held other views and kill them all. And so they became dominant, and this view became dominant. Then Protestantism really followed the Catholic view of these things. And they all, Calvin and all them, they all go back to Augustine. They rely on his teachings. And this era that spread through Christendom. Lewis Berry Schaffer, he said, this strange theory, the origin of which is traced to the Romish notion that the church is a kingdom, contends that whatever millennium there may be is being experienced in the present age. Its advocates interpret the book of Revelation as a description or varied descriptions of this church age. In their unenviable attempt to fit all the events anticipated in the Revelation into the history of this age, the Amillennialists indulge in a form of speculation almost unsurpassed. Their abandonment of reason and sound interpretation has but one objective in mind, namely to place the 1,000 years, six times repeated in Revelation 20, back into the past and therefore something no longer to be anticipated in the future. He says this, In sheer fantastical imagination, this method surpasses Russellism, Eddyism, and Seventh-day Adventism, since the plain grammatical meaning of language is abandoned, and simple terms are diverted in their course and end in anything the interpreter wishes. What does it mean? Well, if it's symbolic, I can just make it mean what I want it to mean. And this is what people do. And another thing you'll find is they say, well, Revelation is apocalyptic literature. And as if to say, well, it doesn't mean what it says. It's a genre of apocalyptic literature, whatever that is supposed to be. And they put it in this category that it's just all symbolic. It's not apocalyptic literature. It's prophetic. It's the Apostle John writing down the visions of things that must shortly come to pass. That's what it is. And he saw these things and we take them literally unless there's legitimate reason to take them otherwise. So here we consider the devil's downfall as he is cast into the bottomless pit for 1,000 years. So we'll look at this under, we'll interrogate this under certain questions. The who, who is involved here? There's an angel, there's a dragon. The when, the period of it. The where, where's he going? And then the why, why is this happening? Why is God doing this? So the first is the who, the personality of the devil. And so there's two characters here. We'll look at the first one. This is the angel here, that angel come down from heaven. He's unnamed. He's not even called a mighty angel and this perhaps sort of it's it's God saying to us. It doesn't take The the hand of the Almighty himself to banish the devil to hell just an angel He can do it with the authority of God But he comes down from heaven on a divine mission with divine authority and power and he comes down to where to earth and So that tells us where this is happening. Jesus has come to the earth. We know that the dragon, he was previously confined to the earth. Remember the battle in heaven, Revelation 12, Michael versus the dragon. He's cast down to the earth and so on there. And this angel, he has a key of the bottomless pit. Very important key. Now we've seen this key before. Back in chapter nine, It talked about, and I believe this is Satan, and I could be wrong, but it's in chapter nine, I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit, and he opened the bottomless pit, and you have the smoke coming out. You have these locusts come out to torment man. I'm of the view that that was given to Satan at that time, but it could be just another angel. We see that there, but ultimately Christ holds all these keys. He holds the keys of hell and death, Revelation 1 verse 18, and no man or angel may open this door without his permission. If a door is opened, it's because Jesus says it can be opened. And if it's shut, it's because he says it's shut. Revelation 3 verse 7. But he doesn't only just have a key, he has a great chain in his hand. This is a chain of heavenly origin, capable of restraining spiritual beings. So this isn't a man-made chain, something we would be familiar with. These other chains that hold devils or fallen angels, 2 Peter 2 verse 4, these angels that sinned, God cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved to judgment. Also in Jude 6, everlasting chains. And it's possible that these fallen angels, they were cast down into the same abyss, this bottomless pit. We don't know that for sure, but that is a view. So there's this angel with his key and chain, but then there's this dragon. He laid hold on the dragon. And he's described in verse 2 under four of his names. this very almost the same thing in chapter 12 verse 9 this is what chapter 12 verse 9 says the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and satan which deceived the whole world so it's almost a repetition of that dragon indicates his fierceness and violence the old serpent subtle and deceptive not just the serpent he's the the old serpent The great antiquity, way back to Genesis 3, where he first appears, as Luther said, for steal our ancient foe, to seek to work us woe. He's an ancient foe. He's an old serpent. He's the devil, Diabolos, the slanderer. And he's Satan, the adversary, the opposer. Who does he oppose? He opposes God, the holy angels, the saints. He opposes God's kingdom. He's against everything to do with God, anything good. Of course, there's many other names that the devil has in the scriptures. I'll just run through some of these. Lucifer, son of the morning, the anointed cherub that covereth, Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Beelzebub comes from Beelzebub, which was a Philistine god, worshipped at Ekron. And it means lord of flies. Curious god there. But it came eventually, the Jews used that term to describe the devil himself. the God of this world, the Prince of this world, the Prince of the power of the air, the tempter, Belial or Belial. Belial means worthlessness. You know, he talks about in the scripture, a son of Belial, son of worthlessness. I'm talking about moral worthlessness or wickedness. And then again, it came to be used for Satan himself. The accuser of our brethren, the wicked one, A roaring lion, that's not necessarily a title, but he's as a roaring lion. He's transformed to an angel of light and many other descriptions of, so it gives us a picture, just these terms that are used in scripture of the devil. So there's the who. the personality of the devil. We'll think about the when, secondly, the period of his deprivation. So, think first of all, before we look at the future, of his present work. Now, if you asked an amillennialist, what's the devil doing now? They'd tell you he's presently bound in the bottomless pit. You know, it's a difficult thing to try and defend, but that's what they believe. Because they have this paradigm, this view of the revelation, and it's got to be all symbolic. But the Scriptures, and really just plain sense, shows this to be false. As Satan remains in the world, 1 John 4 verse 4, He that is in the world, and he's constantly working evil here. So what is he doing? He walks about, seeking whom he may devour. You know, nobody told the Apostle Peter, Satan's in the bottomless pit, he's bound up. No, Peter said he's still walking about, seeking whom he may devour. He spreads lies in the world. He's a liar, he's the father of it. He spreads false doctrine. Doctrines of devils, he fills hearts with lies. Remember Ananias and Sapphira, Satan filled their hearts to lie to the Holy Ghost. He beguiles, 2 Corinthians 11.3, he catches away the seed of the word sown in hearts. Remember the parable. And the birds of the air, they come and they take away that seed. That's the devil, that's the wicked one. He blinds the minds of unbelievers. God and his world have blinded the minds of them which believe not. And so what the gospel does, and those who preach it, they open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light. And from the power of Satan under God, Acts 26, 18, he tempts believers to sin. Satan tempts believers. He says in 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 5, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labor be in vain. He seeks to get an advantage of believers, lest Satan should get an advantage of us. He hinders believers. Paul said, Satan has hindered us. He wanted to come unto them and he said, Satan's hindered us. He afflicts believers. Paul had a thorn, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. He desires to sift believers, as he did with Simon, Simon Peter. He wrestles with believers. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. There's a wrestle going on. There's this warfare, the believer wrestling against these forces of darkness. The chief of them is Satan. He's transformed into an angel of light to deceive, and he takes people captive at his will, who are taken captive by him at his will, the snare of the devil. So, you know, nobody told Paul or any of the apostles that Satan was bound in the bottomless pit. They said he's at work and he's doing his evil work in this world and he continues to do that. So it's just quite absurd to say that Satan is bound and locked up. Some of these teachers, they try and explain this in different ways. B.B. Warfield, He suggested that, he says, it's represented as happening to Satan for the purposes of the symbolic picture. What happens is that the saints described are removed from the sphere of Satan's assaults. The saints described are free from all access of Satan. He is bound with respect to them. Outside of their charmed circle, his horrid work goes on. But believers are still affected by Satan. not possessed by him, but certainly afflicted by him, tempted by him, and all these things. And so we're wrestling with him. But think about this, who benefits the most from the teaching that either the devil doesn't exist or that he's locked away and he's no harm to us? Who's really gonna benefit the most if believers are convinced that, oh, we don't have to worry about Satan and his forces? Obviously the devil, and it should be obvious who is the originator of this lie, the father of lies. No, he's very active, and probably more active than he's ever been, and will be as the end draws nearer. So his future activity during the tribulation, which we've looked at as we've gone through Revelation. Following the rapture, the Holy Spirit's restraining work will cease, and Satan will commence his strategy to bring the world under his complete control. Establishing his man upon the throne of world dominion, the beast. Remember, the dragon is behind the beast, empowering him. Setting up his idolatrous religion, the mark, the worship of the beast. persecuting the Saints putting them to death attempting to destroy the woman in Revelation 12 which is Israel of course the Lord protects Israel there the woman so he's going to be doing all these things very very busy in the tribulation there'll be a war in heaven at the midpoint when Michael casts him to the earth And he will, as the end draws closer, he will advance with increasing fury. Because it says in Revelation 12 verse 12, he knoweth that he hath but a short time, he'll have great wrath and anger. And he'll just seek to just pour out his fury, especially on those who are believers in that time. But then he'll be banished for 1,000 years. And that's what we're looking at at this point in the chronology of the revelation. OK, so we look now at the where, the pit of his detainment, the pit of his detainment. This is called the bottomless pit. The Greek term is a buson, from which we get the English term abyss. It's also translated as the deep. Remember back in Luke chapter 8, you have the legion of devils and the demoniac of Gadara. And these devils, they begged the Lord Jesus. They besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. That's the abyss. That's the bottomless pit. So they're aware of this place. They're aware that perhaps, God had already locked up certain sinning angels in this place, this deep, and they didn't want to be sent there as well. And so it's the same pit that was opened in chapter 9, verses 1 to 3. Remember the locusts come out. and from which the beast ascended. Revelation 11 verse 7, it says, the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit. And so perhaps that's referring to when he has this mortal wound, this deadly wound, and then he revives, and it's all like he's energized out of the abyss sort of thing. And so where is this place? Its location is in the Earth. And so they come out of this deep place. It's down. That's the direction of it. Some think it might be at the very centre of the Earth, and hence has no bottom. There's no down. It's bottomless. But it's a very deep place. It seems to have a shaft that goes down to it, all the way down, which can be opened and closed. And at some point in the past this infernal chamber was filled with demons and securely locked Jude talks about that I made reference to that that reserved in everlasting chains and so on These angels that sinned when the sons of God came to the daughters of men they corrupted the earth prior to the flood and they were confined to 2 Peter 2 verse 4 calls it hell. He casts them down to hell. It's a Greek word, Tartarus, which may be another term for the bottomless pit. It could be, it may not be. But it's a place that is reserved especially for spiritual beings, sinning devils and angels and so on there. But it's a very secure place. And this is really emphasized here. in how what happens to the devil well he's bound with this great chain and then in verse 3 he's cast into the bottomless pit then he's shut up and then set a seal upon him set a seal upon him. And so that's like the seal that was put on the tomb of the Lord Jesus, and that was a very secure seal. It couldn't be broken, except with authorization. And so really, I put it this way. If God intended to express to us that the devil will really be imprisoned and rendered incapable of any influence on Earth, then it is hard to imagine how he could have portrayed it more clearly than he has in these verses. What else could he have said to make it clear that, yes, he's going to be bound up, locked up, with no influence upon the earth? And yet people still say, well, he's bound up, but he has a long chain, or all this nonsense. Let's just take God's word for what it says. OK, so that's that pit of detainment. And then we'll come to the why question, God's providential design and his purpose in confining the devil to this bottomless pit. As we said before, Satan's binding is a necessary part of Christ's earthly kingdom. It's the fulfillment of prophecy. This time has to come to pass when the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head, when he will be cast down to hell. when he will fall as lightning and be cast down and all these things and so Obviously, when God makes a promise, it has to come to pass, as well as all these promises of blessing upon the earth, which really can't happen if the devil is active in performing his evil work. And those blessings upon the earth can only really happen if the devil's out of the picture. The eradication of the rival and opposing king and kingdom. The prophesied kingdom of Christ, which is global, which is one kingdom, can't be realized until that opposing kingdom is removed. But specifically it notes here in verse 3, it gives a reason that he should deceive the nations no more and so it points out his deceptive work and it really emphasizes that the devil is the deceiver and you know when it talks about when he's released at the end of it in verse 8 What will he do? He shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth. And so what God wants us to know is the devil right now is deceiving. He's deceiving people into thinking that they don't need Jesus Christ, they don't need the gospel, that they can get eternal life some other way. He's deceiving him in so many ways and blinding them. And wherever you see error, wherever you see deception, the devil is involved because he's the father of lies. But that deception will be gone. Christ's kingdom will be one of truth, and the knowledge of the Lord will be universal, and not one bit of error. You know, you won't have, we won't have to be having arguments with false teachers about, you know, does the Bible really say this? And they'll have their counter argument of some lie. There won't be any of that. No error. It's hard to comprehend, isn't it? But this is really going to happen in the near future, because his deception will be taken away. But I think there's an important other element to answer the why question. And this will be a final test for mankind. We know that there's going to be mortal humans populating the earth during the kingdom. Of course, the believers living now will be raptured in glorified bodies, never more subject to sin. But those who pass alive into the kingdom will repopulate the earth. There'll be billions of people by the end of the thousand years. And but Satan's removal for these people will mean the removal of a major source of evil in the world. He'll be gone. The devil's gone. The evil world system. So we know when we speak about the world, which is contrary to God. We're not to be conformed to it. The things of the world that are not of God, that's the world system, will also be eradicated when Christ bears global rule. There won't be that rival world kingdom. So we know we have these enemies, the world, the devil, and the flesh. Well, two of those will be taken out of the way, the devil and the world. And man will be given the optimal conditions for which to prove himself to be good and upright. If only we could just have a world without the tempter and all these evils here, and then man would prove himself to be the great being that he is. If we could just give him these optimal conditions. Well, God will give man these conditions. Because the only source of evil left in the world will be man's fleshly nature. Those people born into the kingdom will still have that Adamic nature. the inherited from Adam. Notwithstanding all the other things taken out of the way, they will have that fleshly nature, the carnal nature, that old man. And notwithstanding this ideal environment, at the end of the millennium, man will again demonstrate his utter incapability of obedience to God as an innumerable multitude join the released devil to go to war against Christ and against the holy city and against the saints we'll get to that in this time verses 7 to 10 but this is what's happening in every dispensation If God sets up the conditions, he gives his requirements, at the end of every one, man fails. And there's a few that turn to God, but the majority turn against God, rebel against him, break his commandments, and he has to bring judgment. We'll go through that when we get to these verses. It just shows how depraved, how bent towards sin mankind is. And God will prove that in this 1,000 years. Let me quote J. Dwight Pentecost. He says, in that Satan is bound and every want supplied so that there is nothing to covet, it will be demonstrated through those who are born in the millennium with a fallen sinful nature that man is corrupt and worthy of judgment. In spite of the visible presence of the king and the blessings that come from him by rebellion at the termination of the millennium, men will prove the heart is corrupt. And I hope you understand that the heart of man is corrupt. Man's greatest plague, it's the plague of the heart. And it's that plague within every one of us. And that unless we come to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith, that corruption of the heart will take us to hell. All right, so in conclusion, some final thoughts. Satan is one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe. What a powerful being. God created him for good in a special position, an anointed cherub, but he turned against him and now uses that power for evil. He vehemently hates God and is in constant war against him and his saints. Now all of us were born into this world under his power and helpless to deliver ourselves under the bondage of Satan. That's how every human enters this world. And were it not for the love of God in giving his son to deliver us, we would all be lost eternally in hell with the devil and his angels. As the hymn writer put it, O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came. Where would we be without our savior, our deliverer from the bondage of Satan? And so now the believer is able to overcome the devil, not because of our own strength, but because greater is he that is in you. than he that is in the world. Who's that? It's the Lord Jesus indwelling the believer. And we can be encouraged to persevere in our daily warfare. And this is an encouragement that Paul gave to the Roman believers when he wrote his epistle. And as he finished off his letter, and he said, look, you've got, you know, there's difficulties you're gonna face, and there's heresies, and there's all these problems, there's these enemies. But he encourages them, he says, the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. I thought it was under Jesus' feet. Well, it is, but it's under our feet too. What an encouragement. And he says, believer, it's shortly going to come to pass. And our foe is powerful and he's working in this world, but shortly he'll be bruised under our feet. But in the meantime, we wrestle against him. And we need to realize that there is false teachings about how we need to confront the devil and oppose him. These Pentecostal word-of-faith heretics teach that believers should rebuke Satan and evil spirits in Jesus' name. And they get out there, and they actually speak to the devil and speak to these demons, and they have demons of, They rebuke the devil of alcoholism or sodomy and they rebuke these devils. You know Michael the Archangel? He did not bring against the devil a rallying accusation, but he said, the Lord rebuked thee. It's the Lord who rebukes. And even Michael the archangel, he was careful about how he dealt with the devil, and he brought the Lord into it. But it's popular amongst these people to rebuke these devils. And it's a devil behind every problem that needs to be rebuked. And well, often we're drawn away of our own lust and enticed. And yes, there's devils out there, but let's not blame the devils for everything that I get myself into. And sometimes it's my own sin and lust. So this word of faith, name it and claim it, Kenneth Copeland. He's probably one of the preeminent ones. And there's a video out there of him rebuking COVID-19, right? This is what he said. In the name of Jesus, standing in the office of the prophet of God, I execute judgment on you, COVID-19. I execute judgment on you, Satan. You destroy, you killer. You get out, I break your power. You get off this nation. I demand judgment on you. I demand, I demand. I demand a vaccination to come immediately. I call you done. I call you gone. You come down from your place of authority, destroyer. You come down and you crawl on your belly like God commanded you when he put his foot on your head in the Garden of Eden. You will destroy through COVID-19 no more. And it would be funny if there weren't millions of people swallowing this. And because of his antics and because of his bluster, people, they think this is the man. And of course, they hand over their cash. But this is not how it's to be. And there was actually a movie back in, a so-called Christian movie back in 2015 called War Room. Be careful about these Christian films. They promote a lot of error. There's very few that are actually doctrinally sound. This lady, she had a prayer closet, which she called her war room, nothing wrong with that, but she would pray to God and she would rebuke the devil. And she prays directly to Satan, rebuking him and telling him to go back to hell and leave the family alone. And this is what people think is how we're to go to warfare against the devil. And so we see these things, we need to be aware of that. It's not our role to address Satan or to bind him. And they use the verse in Matthew, you bind the strong man. Well, Jesus is the one who binds the strong man, not us. And so we need to be careful about that. Well, how do we war against the devil? Here's a few points. This is what the scripture tells us in how we deal with Satan. We first of all need to be sober and vigilant. Why? Because the devil's walking about seeking whom he may devour. We need to be watchful and looking and sober. Because if we're slumbering and sleeping and just... He's going to have an advantage over us. We need to make sure that we're not ignorant of his devices. In fact, Paul assumes that with the Corinthians. He said we are not ignorant of his devices and that every Christian should be not ignorant. But a lot are, I think. A great many are. They don't know very little about what the devil does and how he how he works in the world, but also in the believer. Ephesians 4.27, neither give place to the devil. Don't give him a foothold in your life. And many people have given place to him, and they've dabbled in the occult. You know, they've dabbled in things that have spirits involved with them, and they've given place to him. And they've got all these problems and all these things afflicting him, they've given place to the devil. And we need to make sure we don't do that. James 4 verse 7, there's two parts of this. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. I think those two go together. You can't resist the devil if you're not submitted to God. In fact, most people, most of humanity does the opposite. They submit to the devil and they resist God. But no, he says, no, submit therefore to God, resist the devil. And we need to ask ourselves, is there some place in my life where I'm not submitted to God? Is there something I know I should be doing, I'm not doing, there's something I shouldn't be doing and I am doing? Well, you're not going to resist the devil if you're not submitted to God. Make sure we do that. And he'll flee. What a wonderful promise. The saints in Revelation 12 verse 10, they overcame him, this is the devil, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death. It's through the blood of Jesus Christ. through his atonement and through his work that we overcome, not through anything we've done, and that word of testimony, that outward profession that we are his, we need to take unto us the whole armor of God, Ephesians 6, 10 to 18. And why? Because We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It's a wrestle. It's a wonderful word to describe this battle we're engaged in. A wrestle is like a one-on-one fight, a struggle. And he says, look, if you're going to stand in the evil day and stand against the wiles of the devil, you need to take under you the whole armor of God. And you go through those. He uses the imagery of a soldier and the different elements of armor. You take unto you each part of that armour, then you will be able to stand in the evil day. What elements? Truth? righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, and praying always, all prayer. And so am I equipped with the whole armor of God? Or are there some chinks in my armor? Is my shield of faith not what it ought to be? Are my feet not protected and shod with the gospel of peace? We should go through all that at some point, but this is how we contend. We need to be skillful with the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. How did the Lord Jesus contend with Satan in his temptation? Each of the three temptations put before him and each time it is written. It is written. It is written. And because he had the word of God, he was able to defeat the devil's temptations. If we don't know the scripture, we've got no defense against the devil. And so therefore we're to be skillful in the word of righteousness, not babes like Hebrews 5 verse 12, but to be skillful in the word of righteousness and of full age. and able to take that strong meat, then we're equipped to go to battle against this great enemy of our souls, Satan. Oh, he will be cast into that bottomless pit. It's not yet. He's not there yet. He's very active, and he's working, and he wants to destroy every one of us. If we're lost, he wants to take us down to hell. And if we're saved, he wants to make us ineffective for the Lord. No, greater is He that is in us than he that's in the world. Amen.