Our scripture reading tonight is Revelation 20. The text will be the first 10 verses of Revelation 20, which I'll read one time. Just to catch you up to speed a little bit in this book, John is really receiving one long vision that goes all the way back to chapter 4. where he sees God on his throne, and then he sees the exalted Jesus as a lamb. Common take, a sealed book from the one on the throne's hand. Then he opens the seven seals, which unleash a series of judgments that bring the world to its end, at the end of chapter six. Then the vision rewinds. And there's another series of seven trumpets that are blown that again bring the world to its end. And the vision rewinds. And again, there's some other things shown. And then another series of seven plagues that are pouring out of vials, which brings the world to its end in chapter 16. And then an angel speaks to John, and the vision rewinds, and he shows him in detail the end of the world, including the destruction of the city Babylon, which is the city that man makes, the city of this world, and the judgment of that city. And then there's the return of Christ in chapter 19, the great battle of Armageddon, and then as we'll see, the vision rewinds again. But that gets us to chapter 20. Let's read the scriptures. This is God's inspired word, Revelation 20. And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 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. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog. to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about in the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. I would recommend that you keep your Bible open. but that's just my recommendation. At this point in his vision, John the Apostle is witnessing the triumph over the returning, the returned Jesus, over his three most fearsome enemies. These three enemies, which appear in the vision of Revelation, stand at the core of fallen sinful humanity's rebellion against God. Together, these three enemies represent the anti-God, the false prophet, A beast who rises up out of the sea in chapter 13, out of the earth, and makes a living image of the beast is the anti-spirit. The beast from the sea who makes war with the saints is the anti-Christ. And the dragon who gives power to the beast we might call the anti-God or the anti-Father. Two of these imposters have already been exposed and dealt with in chapter 19, at the end of chapter 19. When Jesus returns on his white horse, the beast and the false prophet come to make war with him. They are then quickly apprehended and cast into the lake of fire and their armies, whom they deceived, are slain with the sword out of Jesus' mouth. Only the dragon, at this point in chapter 20, who is the primary culprit in the whole sad affair of sin and rebellion, remains to be confronted. To do justice to this final showdown between the devil and the Christ, however, the vision that John receives must rewind once more. We need to see that the final destruction of Satan is only the culmination of a battle that he lost long ago. Satan, today and in the future, may be a fierce enemy who goes about as a roaring lion whom we must view with a sober mind and be vigilant and ready to resist. Satan may have his future moment in the sun coming when he will seem to triumph over the world that God made, Yet in principle, his power was destroyed and his head crushed when Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross. All the devil really has going for him today and in the future is a thousand year demise that ends with him being cast into the lake of everlasting fire. Now, you might recognize this chapter as the source of various millennial views, which is the main source of controversy when it comes to the study of the last things. Millennium is another word for a thousand years. Pre-millennialists see Jesus returning in chapter 19 before the millennium is mentioned here in chapter 20. And because premillennialists read the book of Revelation as a strict timeline of future events, they say that Jesus will return, Revelation 19, before the millennium, Revelation 20. He will come and destroy the beast, the Antichrist, raise the dead martyrs, and reign with the saints on earth for a thousand years. After a thousand years of peace on earth with Jesus reigning as King, Satan will be released, from the abyss and lead yet another rebellion of fallen sinful humanity against Jesus. Jesus will then destroy Satan, crush the rebellion, raise the dead a second time, and make all things new. Such is the premillennial view. The basic error here in premillennialism is one of interpretation. There is a failure to recognize the figurative language that prevails throughout the book of Revelation and how often this vision rewinds to show the same events that are coming in the end, but from a slightly different perspective. Rather than to say that there will be two rebellions, two judgments, two heavenly reigns of Christ, and two resurrections, a simpler and more sober interpretation of Revelation 20 notices that John is just seeing the same events twice, but from a different angle. So with those introductory thoughts in mind, let's consider Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10. The theme for this sermon is the thousand-year demise of Satan. We'll see how the devil is bound and what that means, how he is released for a short time, and finally, how he is destroyed. Crucial for understanding this entire passage is what is meant by the binding of Satan. It says in verse 2 that the angel who descended from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, lays hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. This angel casts the dragon into the bottomless pit or the abyss and locks the door. He then puts a seal over him to prevent him from leaving his bonds for a thousand years. And this is all done according to verse three, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled. Meanwhile, as Satan is bound in the abyss for a thousand years, the kingdom of Christ flourishes according to verse 4. John sees thrones and people sitting on them who are given authority to execute judgment. John sees the souls of the martyrs living with Christ and reigning with him for a thousand years. John sees the beneficiaries of what he calls the first resurrection over whom the second death has no power, verse 6. And John sees others who die and are not raised again until the thousand years are finished. And they will be those who suffer the second death. But everything, if you look at this vision, goes back to the thousand years. And the thousand years is first announced in the text as the period in which the dragon is bound in the abyss. How you understand the binding of Satan, therefore, is how you will understand this passage and the millennium. Thankfully, the passage itself tells us the purpose of the binding of Satan in the abyss for a thousand years. This is important to notice because it addresses one of the biggest objections to the amillennial view. The amillennial view, which is the reformed, and we would say biblical view, says that Satan is bound right now in the present The amillennial view says the thousand years is not a literal thousand years, but is the period between Jesus' ascension and his final return. The premillennialist therefore points to the state of the world today between Jesus' ascension and his return and says, what do you mean that Satan is bound in the abyss? Look at all of the evil that exists in the world today. Look at all of the open rebellion against God and His commandments that we see in the world today. Look at what's happening in our society. Millions of babies are murdered by abortion. Drug use and sexual immorality are through the roof. Always the world is getting worse and worse, more and more evil. And you tell me that Satan is bound? You tell me that the kingdom of Christ is flourishing? How can that be? Surely this must not be reflecting the present moment. Surely this must be reflecting a future period in which Satan will be bound and Christ will have a kingdom that flourishes on this earth. However, the Amillennial view, which again we say is the Reformed and Biblical view, says that Satan is indeed bound now. He is bound, the question is, in what sense is he bound? Earlier in the book of Revelation, we see this same person, the devil, in chapter 9, and at that point, in chapter 9, he does not appear bound at all, even though similar language is used regarding the abyss and the key of the abyss and so on. This character, the devil, there, appears as a star who falls from heaven and he then is the one who opens the abyss with a key that is given to him. That's Revelation 9 verse 1. This person, the devil, there described with the name Apollyon, sets loose a demonic horde of locusts who torment men and provoke them to blasphemy. There, in chapter 9, the book of Revelation is showing us how the devil has a certain freedom in this present age between Jesus' ascension and return. He is free to torment the wicked, and he is free even to persecute the people of God. He is free, according to chapter 12 of Revelation, to let out a flood of lies and deceptions out of his mouth. So there is a sense in which the devil is free. Yet here in chapter 20, which is a vision specifically of Satan's judgment at the very end of the world, the image shifts. And now we are shown that even though he is free in a sense, he is also bound in a very important and specific way. He is bound in such a way that makes it impossible for him, the devil, to achieve his greatest ambition. He is bound in such a way that he is unable to deceive the nations until a future day when he will be set loose for a short while. Verse 3. That angel, who descends from heaven, casts the dragon into the abyss, shuts him up, and sets a seal upon him. Why? 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. That is the specific sense in which he's bound. He is unable to deceive the nations until a future day when he will be able to do that for a short time. That brings us to the thousand years and what that period of time stands for. The premillennialist again sees the thousand years as strictly literal. Yet as the book of Revelation repeatedly makes clear, numbers are highly symbolic and figurative, especially in this genre of biblical literature. For example, No one believes, no interpreters believe, that Jesus literally has seven eyes, or that Jesus literally has seven horns on his head, even though he's described that way in Revelation 5 under the figure of a lamb who was slain. Everyone, even the premillennialists, understands that there the number seven is a symbolic number of the kingdom of Christ. Furthermore, no one believes that the Antichrist is going to appear one day having 10 literal horns on his head. Everyone understands that the number 10 is a symbolic number that represents the total and complete domination that Antichrist will exercise over the world for a time. So in a book that is filled with symbolic numbers, we should not be quick to assume that a thousand years refers to a literal future period of 365,000 days or 8,760,000 hours. It's a symbolic number with a symbolic significance. 1,000 is 10 times 10 times 10. It is the number of completeness, 10, multiplied three times. In other words, this period of 1,000 years represents a complete epoch. It represents a complete age. It is a period of time that spans multiple generations of human lives. But it has a definite expiration date. It's not everlasting. It's a thousand years. It does not represent the final damnation of the devil in hell. That has no expiration date. It does not represent the final reign of Christ with his people in the new heavens and earth. That has no expiration date. Rather, it represents an era of the history of this world that when it is over, the world itself will end and all things will be made new and the everlasting state will begin. It's not a stretch to see this 1,000 years as representing the same period that is described again and again and again in the book of Revelation in the figure of those cycles of seven that I mentioned when I was giving you the context. The thousand years is the same period of time as represented by the opening of the seven-sealed scroll that brings the world to the end of history. The thousand years is the same period of time as represented by the blowing of the seven trumpets that brings us to the end of history. It is the same period of time as represented by the pouring out of the seven veils, which brings us to the Battle of Armageddon and the end of history. It is a period of time in which the wrath of man is restrained by the judgments of God. It is a period of time in which the devil is seeking, always seeking, to deceive the nations, to build his city Babylon, His anti-Christian kingdom, but his efforts are thwarted again and again and again until God lets him loose. Until such time, he is bound in the bottomless pit and he's sealed that he should deceive the nations no more until he is loosed for a little season. And if you look at the history of the world and of the Christian church since Christ ascended, this all fits and it makes sense with what we observe. Yes, there is evil and sin in the world. And yes, there is evidence of the demonic influence of Satan and the spread of his lies and deceptions. Yes, there are important ways in which the devil is free to do much evil so that the Bible says we must be vigilant and be prepared to resist him. And yet the devil has been unable to do what he once did, and certainly he has been unable to surpass what he once did. He has been unable to bring the world together with the building up of a new tower of Babel. He has been unable to unite fallen sinful humanity under the Antichrist and his religion of beast worship. It's not for want of trying on the devil's part. It's not for want of effort on his part. All of the wars, all of the politics, all of the religious conflicts of the past 2,000 years, if you look at them from a Christian point of view, from a biblical point of view, you will find the devil's fingerprints all over that stuff. He wants to bring man together to become the only God of humanity. That's his goal. I will be the God of the human race. He wants to raise up his beast, his twisted and perverted version of the Christ, and his false prophet to build his city of sin and human pride. Yet always he is thwarted. Always the strong empires fall and crumble because of the running of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. the wars and the rumors of wars that Jesus speaks of. Always the great men who have the potential to bring the world together are killed before their time or they fail in some other way. Always the gospel of the kingdom of Christ, the running of the white horse is preached and the hearts of God's people are set free from the devil's lies and that keeps the devil bound. It keeps him unable from accomplishing his great purpose. No matter how hard he tries. Not until God allows it. Not until the thousand years expires. And this failure of Satan to deceive the nations for a thousand years, and this is really the big point that I'd like us to take home tonight. This failure of Satan to deceive the nations for a thousand years belongs to Christ's defeat and humiliation of this, his greatest and most fearsome enemy. I wonder if, as we look at the story of Scripture and the story of the Gospel, if we fully appreciate just how close Satan was, or at least appeared to be, to accomplishing his goal. Now, I know the devil could never actually be allowed to accomplish his goal under the sovereignty of God, but I wonder if we fully appreciate how close he was from a human point of view. He had his city built. It was called Rome. It was an empire that was peerless in its day, with a human ruler who was worshipped as a god by the people of that city. It was a kingdom of peace and prosperity that lasted for hundreds of years, that still to this day is known as the Pax Romana, or the Peace of Rome. Satan had his city. He had his kingdom. All he had to do was destroy the Christ when he appeared. Or better yet, all he had to do was pervert and twist the Christ through temptation so that Christ himself would now become the devil's servant. What do you think Satan was trying to accomplish when he appeared to Jesus in the wilderness before Jesus' ministry? He was trying to accomplish this. Look at all the kingdoms of the world, Satan says to Jesus, on top of that mountain. I can give them all to you. I can make you the king of this entire human race. Just bow the knee and worship me as your only God. You won't have to suffer, you won't have to fight. I'll give it to you. And when the devil tempted Jesus with that offer, he wasn't bluffing. He could have put Jesus on Caesar's throne. And he could have established in Jesus an earthly kingdom that would have lasted for a thousand years or more. And you can imagine what kind of kingdom that would have been. there would have been unbelievable riches. Water at every feast, turning to wine, and not just any wine, but the best wine. Bread multiplying and filling the bellies of all of the people of the earth so that no one is hungry, no one suffers. Every fish that a man catches would open its mouth and there would be gold coins to those who need some extra cash. It would have been a kingdom unlike any kingdom that has ever been seen. All to the glory of Lucifer, the son of the morning, and to the Messiah who bowed the knee and worshiped him and served him. That's what the devil was trying to do. Yet Jesus proved to be unlike all of the other kings that Satan had tempted and seduced. He was not deceived. He was not allured by the prospect of earthly power and glory. He took God's side. And so, from the devil's point of view, Jesus must be crushed and he must be destroyed on the Roman cross. And again, when you look at the story, and you know how it goes, You wonder, and I've wondered this sometimes, maybe you have, at what point did Satan realize what a terrible miscalculation he had made by having Jesus crucified? Did he understand that his defeat had just been accomplished? When he heard Jesus crying out in his death throes, not words of agony and despair and defeat, but words of triumph, it is finished? Did the devil understand how much and how thoroughly he had been defeated when he learned of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead the following Sunday through the rumors that were spreading throughout Jerusalem? Did he understand how thoroughly he was defeated when the living Jesus was caught up into the heavens and he, the dragon, was cast down to the earth by Michael and his angels as described in chapter 12 of Revelation? Was it when he tried desperately to stamp out the growing and expanding church by killing and beheading and imprisoning the saints through his human servants only for that same church to grow and multiply exponentially so that as many as he killed that many more would be converted in their place. We don't know when the devil knew precisely that he had lost But in the aftermath of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus and the ministry of the apostles, the devil's kingdom collapsed all around him and he has never regained it. Meanwhile, in that same period of time, the kingdom of Jesus Christ has grown and grown and grown. Don't forget that the kingdom of Jesus Christ has even grown on this earth. Don't overlook how amazing it is that the whole world today, anywhere you go in the world today, just about, you can find somebody who at least has heard the name Jesus Christ and probably knows something about what he did and represents. That's quite astounding when you think about it. Don't forget what kind of impact the cross of Jesus has even had on world affairs. The world as we know it today is shaped by the Christian faith. But more important than any sort of expansion of Christianity in the world below, is the growth of the kingdom of Christ that is taking place every day in heaven, which is something the book of Revelation shows so beautifully. All of those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, by the prompting of the devil who tries to stamp out Jesus' kingdom, are not defeated by the devil. They are set on thrones, according to this chapter, and authority is given to them. And they are taken up into the heavens where they cry out to God to bring vengeance on those who shed their blood. They are given life in the first resurrection, the resurrection of the soul, to live and reign with Christ for a thousand years. They don't go into soul sleep. They don't go into a state of non-existence between Jesus' ascension and His return. They are caught up to Christ Himself, and there they live with Him and reign with Him. They're made priests and kings of God and Christ. What happens to all those who serve the devil and give their lives over to him? Well, they're dead and buried and never heard from again until they're dragged out of the dust of death for the final judgment when they will be cast into the lake of fire. The point of the thousand years is not a prediction that Satan will be defeated and will be bound in a future time. The point of the thousand years is that Satan is defeated and is bound at precisely this moment. And the key that holds him in his prison is the cross of Jesus Christ. The same Jesus whom Satan once attempted to deceive and manipulate as his little pawn. Rather than succeeding in that deception of Jesus, however, and attaining a kingdom of glory on this earth that lasted for a thousand years, Satan is bound in the abyss and he is given a steady, slow, thousand-year humiliating defeat. Yet the passage says that at the end of a thousand years, Satan will be loosed out of his prison, verse seven. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Satan will be released from his bounds at the very end. And being released, he will go out to deceive the nations in the four quarters of the earth. In other words, all of the nations of the human race. Now this is not the first time in the book of Revelation that you see the devil deceiving all of the nations of the human race. If you flip back to chapter 16, verse 13, you will see the dragon and three unclean spirits proceeding out of his mouth. And these three unclean spirits are further described as devils who gather the kings of the earth to the battle of the great day of God Almighty, which is more familiarly known to us as the battle of Armageddon. That battle concludes in chapter 16 in the defeat of fallen humanity and the final destruction of Babylon, their city. Then the angel who is showing John this vision presses the rewind button to show John this spectacular defeat of the devil and his servants and the kingdom of Babylon in greater detail. And that more detailed description begins in chapter 17. Part of that greater detail is here, as we see Satan loosed to deceive the nations. It is the same deception that was earlier represented by those three frog-like spirits. It's the gathering of the nations to the same battle that brought the world to its end in chapter 16. It is the devil's final assault against God and his Christ in his attempt to make himself into God. That this is the same battle that was represented in chapter 16 is further demonstrated by the reference to Gog and Magog in verse 8. Gog is the name of a king who ruled over the land of Magog in the prophecy of Ezekiel. That's Ezekiel 38 and 39. Now often scripture uses historic kings, such as the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, as types of the Antichrist. If you want to know what the Antichrist will be like, you get something of an idea of it by looking at Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, or other such kings. And everyone knows who the king of Babylon is. If there was a historical king named Gog, however, he was so far removed from the land of Judea and from the world that the prophets and the people of God lived in at that time that it was like, from our perspective, hearing about something going on way over in Russia and some politics going on there that we know nothing about. It's even possible that there was no historical king named Gog at all, but that he is simply a stand-in, a kind of metaphor. Either way, the point seems to be that the true Antichrist will have no genuine parallels. He will be similar to previous kings in some ways. He will be like the king of Babylon in some ways, for example, but he will also be profoundly different and unique and there will be things that are only true of him. He will be the beast who rises out of the sea, Revelation 13, with seven heads and ten horns on his head. Again, not literally seven heads and ten horns. But he will be a uniquely ferocious, uniquely powerful, uniquely dominant figure. In the book of Ezekiel 38 and 39, Gog, the Antichrist, comes to fight against Israel. Now of course already in Ezekiel's time, Ezekiel was a prophet in the days of the Babylonian captivity, the land of Israel was no more and God's people were in Babylon. So Gog coming to fight Israel in the book of Ezekiel is already a picture at that time. It's a metaphor for Gog coming to fight against God and his people. And God, in preparation for the battle against Gog, the Antichrist, tells Ezekiel to speak to the birds. Now look at Revelation 19. And how the return of Jesus that ends with the defeat of the beast and the false prophet ends. It says in verse 17 of chapter 19 that an angel cries with a loud voice saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both free and bond both small and great. The battle takes place, verse 21, In other words, the battle in Revelation 20, the battle of Gog and Magog, is the same battle as Revelation 19, is the same battle as Revelation 16, is the same battle as Ezekiel 38 and 39. It is the battle that ends with the birds of heaven being filled with the flesh of those who are slain by the exalted Jesus. The reason we go through all of that is because it makes clear why the premillennial understanding of this passage, which is a very popular view today, is simply not possible. It's simply not possible as an interpretation of this passage. The premillennial presentation goes along these lines. This is how they present it. Currently we live in the age between Jesus' ascension and Jesus' return. So far so good. Again, so far so good. To that point we agree with the premillennialists. Yet in the premillennial view, Jesus returns to set up his kingdom on this earth. Jerusalem, that is that location over there in Palestine, will be rebuilt with brick and mortar. Thrones will be set up in the newly rebuilt earthly city of Jerusalem where the saints, the resurrected saints, will rule. There will be a resurrection in the body of the martyrs who will live in this Millennial Kingdom. There will be unbelievers and wicked people who, though submitting outwardly to the rule of Christ, are still wicked unbelievers whose hearts are rebellious against God, living in the Millennial Kingdom under the reign of the risen, exalted Jesus Christ. There will be Gog in the land of Magog, which is on the fringes of this millennial kingdom. And then at the end of a thousand years, which in the typical premillennial presentation is a literal, strictly literal thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison. He will deceive the nations a second time. He will wage war against this millennial kingdom of Jesus on earth. A physical battle with physical warfare, swords, guns, whatever that means. He will then be destroyed once and for all by Jesus, who wages such war against him. And finally, he will be cast in the lake of fire, just as before he was cast into the abyss. And then after this thousand-year kingdom of Jesus on earth is finished, all things will be made new. That's just the basic premillennial view. We're not even going into the dispensational view, which is even more involved than this. But there's many evangelical Christians today, good Christian people, who hold this view of the end times. But it's not possible to interpret it that way. The primary exegetical problem, and by the way, that whole view rests exclusively on this chapter, because this is the only chapter in the Bible that even mentions millennium. And then all kinds of other scripture passages are interpreted around this chapter in order to make it make sense. But the primary exegetical issue with this premillennial view is that it makes two battles out of one battle. It's not two battles, it's the same battle. There is not a battle with the beast, the Antichrist, and then another battle with the dragon a thousand years later. There is one battle, which Revelation 16 calls the battle of the great day of God Almighty. There is one return of Jesus to put an end to this battle and to give the flesh of Gog and his armies to the birds. There is one defeat of Satan and there's only one defeat of Satan needed. The long humiliating defeat that begins with the cross lasts for a symbolic thousand years and ends in the lake of fire. The primary theological issue with premillennialism is that it attempts to bring heaven down to earth. To bring this idea to its logical conclusion, and we say this with respect to, again, good Christian people who believe these things, but to bring this idea to its logical conclusion, premillennialism presents the kingdom of Christ in a way, largely speaking, that Satan himself would approve of. It is a kingdom of earthly peace and earthly prosperity. It is a kingdom where unbelievers continue to dwell and continue to rebel against God and his Christ. It is a kingdom that is held together not by grace, not by mercy, but by force in the thread of cold steel. The true kingdom of heaven is nothing like that. It is a kingdom whose peace and joy cannot be conceived in earthly terms. It is a kingdom wherein nothing abominable or deceptive or wicked has a place. It is a kingdom of grace and beauty and mercy where all of the citizens who live there are willing in the day of Jesus' power because their hearts have been sweetly and powerfully bent toward him. The kingdom of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven, in other words, is a kingdom that will be established not for a thousand years, but forever and ever, world without end. It is the kingdom of the new heavens and the new earth that begins to be described in chapter 21. It is the kingdom of the resurrection and everlasting state. That is the only kingdom of heaven that the Christian needs or looks for. And that is the kingdom that is very next on God's timeline. an earthly kingdom is next, and then finally the everlasting kingdom way down the road, but it's the very next thing after the thousand-year demise of Satan is finalized in his humiliating defeat. And that brings us to the final point this morning. In the vision, by verse 9, Satan has succeeded in deceiving the whole world in his desperate battle against God and Christ. Verse 9, But he has surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. So it does not look good for the church and the people of God on earth at this time. Again, this does not mean that Satan is the head of a literal army that has surrounded a literal city. Those are visionary and apocalyptic terms. But this is describing the same apparent defeat of the church that is indicated back in chapter 11 with the killing of the two witnesses. It is the same apparent triumph of the devil which is shown with the rise of the two beasts in chapter 13. Christianity has appeared to be stamped out. True believers have either been killed or are in hiding. And many who seem to be Christian have apostatized and received the mark of the beast. The devil's ambition has at long last been realized, or so he thinks and so it seems. And then just as soon as he achieves his great ambition, it all turns to ashes in his fingers under the judgment of God. Fire falls from heaven to consume Satan's armies, just like the fire that fell before Elijah the prophet to destroy those soldiers that came to assault him. The devil, this great dragon who has been deceiving the whole world and terrorizing God's people, is taken by the scruff of the neck like a naughty puppy and cast into the eternal prison called the Lake of Fire alongside his chief officers. Verse 10. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night. Forever and ever. He's not annihilated. He is certainly not enjoying himself in the lake of fire as if hell is the place where Satan is king and everyone else is his subject. Not at all. In the lake of fire, he will suffer the same eternal torment that he has brought down upon countless others who were seduced and deceived through his lies. And yet he will suffer more than all as the one who was the most deceived, imagining that he could be God. I will be God. I will be exalted to the heavens, Satan said, only to be thrust down into the lowest part of hell. And there he will deceive no more. And there he will harm the people of God no more. Now I realize that's a lot of information that we just worked through. A lot of interpretation. So we need to end with a couple of applications. What do we take away from all of this? How does this inform our perspective as we live in the last days as the people of God? First of all, don't be deceived by the apparent strength of evil and unbelief in the world today. Don't be deceived by the apparent successes of the devil. It is all fake. It is all a lie. The devil has no genuine power at all. All of his power is based on deception and lies. And even his apparent successes are only the successes that God allows him to have. He cannot get his way until God finally lets him off his chain for a little while at the end. And even then, he will only be let off his chain in order to expose himself for the evildoer that he is to be destroyed and dealt with once and for all. So yes, be sober when you think about the devil and his hatred for Christ and the kingdom of Christ, and therefore his hatred for you as the people of God. Be sober. He's not an enemy to be underestimated. But don't be intimidated by him either. Don't say, all is lost. Look at the world today. Look at the influence and the power that Satan has. The entire sad existence of Satan is one long humiliating defeat that ends with him being thrust into the lake of fire. Don't be deceived by the apparent strength of evil and unbelief in the world today. And then this. People of God, be glad and rejoice for Jesus Christ reigns. He's not only going to reign in the future for a thousand years, He reigns today. There are thrones in heaven, and those who sit on those thrones are the witnesses of Jesus Christ and His kingdom. There is a kingdom above. where all of the true power and all of the true glory and all of the true majesty resides forever. And it is that kingdom which will continue after the thousand years of this age expire and pass away. And that is the kingdom to which you belong by your faith in Jesus, in his finished work. So let this be our hopeful song as we wait for the end of this age and the beginning of eternity. It's the song of God's people right before the return of Jesus in chapter 19, verse 1. Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father who art in heaven, we thank Thee for this vision which shows us the future and gives us hope and confidence that though the influence and power of evil may seem great to our eyes, yet it is no power at all. And as quickly as the kingdom of Satan is built up, so quickly will it turn to ashes and dust and he destroyed. So strengthen our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and deepen our sense of hope that his kingdom is coming and there is good for us, even if we must endure suffering and pain for a time in this fallen, broken, and evil world. And we pray with all of thy saints, come Lord Jesus, Yea, come quickly. Amen.