Well, when the Son of God goes forth to war, sometimes it's to capture captives into His kingdom. It's conversion. We looked at that last week. Sometimes, though, it is judgment, destruction. And we're going to be looking at that this week. This is the last of the gory sections of Revelation, but I'm reading from Revelation 19, 17 through 21. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in midheaven, come, gather together to the great dinner of God so that you may eat flesh of kings and flesh of commanders and flesh of the mighty and flesh of horses along with their riders, even the flesh of bull, both free and slave, both small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the one riding the horse and against his army. So the beast was captured and within the false prophet, the one who performed signs in his presence by which he had deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. The two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone, and the rest were killed by the sword that proceeds from the mouth of the one riding the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and I pray that as we study it, that our thinking would be aligned with your thinking, that our emotions would be aligned with your word, that every aspect of our being would learn to worship, to follow, to submit to you, and to align our lives with your scripture. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, as I mentioned last week, we looked at Christ leading his armies through the portal of heaven in AD 70 to advance his kingdom. That's the extension of his kingdom amongst all of the nations and Daniel 7 very explicitly ties that advance to the very end of the first three and a half years of the war. And everything about the symbolism in verses 11 through 16 shows that it would be a successful, a victorious conquest. We saw that all nations are eventually guaranteed to be sheep that Jesus would shepherd. Would it be gradual? Yes, it would, but it will be victorious. Now today, we're going to look at the second snapshot in this introduction to the last section of Revelation. The second snapshot is really happens at the same time. It's the second side of the coin, but the second snapshot is basically saying, hey, those who are not converted, who do not kiss the sun, as Psalm 2 words it, and submit to his reign will perish in his wrath. And when you study this section you realize that the wrath of Jesus Christ is an incredibly scary thing. You do not want to face his wrath. Now granted this is primarily looking at the mopping up operations of that war between Rome and Israel. but it's worded in such a way that it sets forth a general principle that is applicable to all nations. The only options for nations today are an unconditional surrender to Jesus in everything or to perish in his wrath. Those are the only options. And the first thing that we see in this passage is that the war from AD 66 through 70 was devastating with millions of people being killed. Now many commentaries express puzzlement that there's all of these bodies listed in verses 17 through 18 before the battle that they think is The result of these bodies, I mean, the cause of these bodies happens in verses 19 through 21. But there's nothing puzzling about this at all. These bodies are the result of the war that was leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. What we have been looking at over the past few chapters. And now that Jerusalem has been taken care of, the beast now is going to refocus what his original intention was to fight against Christ and against the saints. He had been diverted. That was his intention. He had been diverted by these rebels in Jerusalem. He had to take care of that problem. And God preserved the 144,000 during those three and a half years of war in Pella. So for the partial preterists, there is a perfect fulfillment and a perfect order in these verses. The dead bodies are littered around the ground in August of 8070. and that this was August of 8070 and not some distant future or maybe imminent future as some people think in the 21st century or something like that can be seen from a number of angles. I'll just skip over the first point because we've been spending a lot of time in chapter 17 through 19 showing the sequence that necessitates that this be in 8070. That's when Christ's armies ride forth in this display, and if you want a very specific date, it's August 1 of AD 70. But the immediate context shows this too. For example, verses 19 through 20 makes clear that the beast and the false prophet are still on the scene. They stand together with their gathered armies, which implies that the leaders that these demons possessed were still on the scene with their gathered armies. So this implies that Titus is still in Israel and a rabbi, Yohanan ben Zakkai is still functioning as spiritual leader to the new Israel of Rabbinic Judaism. So that would be a very, very specific, very narrow window of time. But verse 18 also shows why those who place this section in our imminent future are forced here to not be literal. Dispensationalists pride themselves on being very literal, and we've been seeing our interpretation of revelations far more literal than theirs is. But anyway, verse 18 speaks of the flesh of horses along with their riders. Okay. This is not a technologically advanced period of time, you know, when they're using guns and, and tanks and helicopters and all that kind of thing. There are a lot of people think they can fit Cobra helicopters and tanks into revelation, but there's no way they can be literal. Okay, lastly, the masses of bodies being eaten by eagles, vultures, crows, and other birds of heaven fits perfectly the history that we have of August of 8070. How bad was it? Let me just give you a very, very brief introduction. It's so gross, it's gotta be brief. But let me give you a brief introduction to the history as it's recorded by an eyewitness of that war by the name of Josephus. He says that the bodies that fell during the first part of the war were everywhere. Josephus says the whole country was filled with slaughter. The victims thus outnumbered by far those of any previous destruction wrought by God or man." Well, when you read his histories of the previous 2,000 years of warfare, that's an incredibly significant statement because he's got all kinds of wars that had hundreds of thousands, some approaching a million casualties that came from that war. And he says this far outnumbers those in terms of casualties, by far, he says. Carcasses were everywhere. All around the city, the Romans had crucified Jews, had taken them down, crucified some more. They had captured many and not crucified them, just cut them open looking for gold in their stomachs. There were Jews everywhere, littered around the ground. But inside the city, both starvation and factional fighting had left the city full of bodies. Josephus says of them, The narrow streets and the houses were full of the bodies of people who had died of starvation. Now, as streets filled up, houses got packed, and as those couldn't contain them, they started throwing the bodies over the walls into the ravine, which began filling up. He says that the city continued to fill with bodies, nor was there any place, he says, in the city that had no dead bodies in it, but what was entirely covered with those that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion and all was full of the dead bodies of such as had perished either by that sedition or by that famine. And another place he said, and indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight and produced a pestilential stench. When the Romans broke into the city and they started killing everyone that they could find, Josephus says, some of the streets were so filled with bodies, nobody could get through them anymore. They were completely packed. They couldn't even climb over them. In other places of the city, he said, the ground was nowhere visible through the corpses, but the soldiers had to clamber over heaps of bodies in pursuit of fugitives. Later, as the Romans tried to plunder the bodies, only the most hardened soldiers were able to do so without gagging. Josephus says, so foul a stench from the bodies greeted the intruders that many withdrew instantly. So I think you get the picture. I don't think I need to read much more. What happened in August of 8070 perfectly and very literally fulfills what is in these verses. So what I want to do is I want to go through verses 17 through 21 fairly rapidly, and I want to apply these verses to today. Verse 17 says, And I saw an angel standing in the sun. Angels were involved in the carnage back then, and I believe they continue to be involved in the carnage that we have been seeing over the last hundred years, where probably more people have died than any other period in history, primarily to the Communists. You can look at Rwanda, you know, where the bodies were stacked up waist high in some areas or the killing fields of Mozambique that Peter Hammond has documented so well, or the millions that died in Cambodia or other communist countries. It is absolutely horrifying, but these are judgments wrought by God. They are not accidents of history. Okay. These are judgments wrought by his angels. It may seem barbaric. But it is written right into God's law that when Israel violated his laws intentionally and perpetually, this eventually is the kind of judgment that would happen to them. And over and over, Israel would say, nah, that's not going to happen to us. Things are going to continue just as they have been. And Americans seem to think the same thing. Nah, that's not going to happen. Things will continue just as they have throughout my entire lifetime. And even Christians think that our nation can sin with a high hand flagrantly against God and get away with it. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Verse 17 goes on, and he cried out with a loud voice saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven. There are way too many commentaries that spiritualize almost everything in this book. And what the historicists say about this It's just unbelievable. Not all of them are agreed, obviously, on what these birds symbolize, but some say they're the Goths and the Vandals who devastated the Roman Empire. Others say they symbolize the Turks or the Huns. And while it is true that the literal events in history symbolize something, I'm going to be showing in a bit, that these literal birds symbolize something related to the Noahic covenant and how God relates to our creation, there is absolutely no reason we cannot take these as literal birds. We've seen that the symbols of revelation have tended to be literal events, people, or times in history. Now, that literal birds would eat bodies was a curse that God put into His law as a way of dishonoring those who have dishonored God. They would receive no burial. So Deuteronomy 28, 26, God told Israel, Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. Ezekiel 39, 17 through 20 gives an even more graphic call to the birds to eat this sacrificial meal that God is providing for them of all of these corpses in that battle until the animals can eat no more. Speaking of this war, Matthew 24, verse 28 said, For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. So that is how seriously God takes national sin and national rebellion. When men make the state their God, then God allows the state to turn them into a meat grinder, so to speak. And he does so so that people will stop trusting statism or any other form of idolatry. But here's the problem. We tend to be forgetful of history. We tend to be forgetful that God indeed has brought judgments in America in the past. He's brought judgments in Europe. He's brought judgments other places of the world. This kind of thing has happened over and over and over again. And Christians, you talk about it and they're not familiar with it. They're not aware of it at all. Now, part of the reason it's off of our radar is that the media tends not to publicize a lot of the death tolls that are out there. But if you look at the death tolls, and you can find them on the web, for the 79 wars that America has been involved in since its founding, you can see that God's hand of judgment has been very, very active. Was the American Civil War an act of God's judgment? I believe it was on both North and South. They were a Christian nation. They should have known better. They flagrantly were violating God's laws in both the North and the South. And the devastation of judgment was just enormous. When you look at the body counts there, same was true of World Wars I and World War II. We lost 405,399 soldiers in World War II. And we actually came off rather well compared to the rest of the world. I was doing some research and there was a lot of debate on this, specific statistics. Most people say that World War II, if you count the civilians and the soldiers that were killed, ranged somewhere between 60 million and 80 million people who died now the lowest figure that I have seen and it's pretty questionable was 16 million and Actually, I've seen as high as 85 million But every study out there shows a massive loss of life. Germany lost 5 million, Japan 2.3 million. I think many of us believe that even with the high statistics, the Soviet reports of deaths, way, way underestimated. It seems like there was far more deaths in the Soviet Union. So just as God judged both Israel and Rome during this war, and in past sermons I've documented the massive death tolls on both sides. In the past 2,000 years, God has brought his judgments through plagues, wars, famines, abortion, AIDS, and other things like floods and typhoons. Here's the point. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat history. And the moral downslide in America is an evidence we may be heading that way once again. Now let me give you a little bit of a rabbit trail digression on how it is, people are troubled by this, how it is that God can disapprove of this type of warfare and yet use it. Use it as a judgment. How can God use what he disapproves of? If you read the book of Habakkuk, you'll see Habakkuk had the same trouble. He said, Lord, why are you using Babylon, who's way, way, way more evil than Israel? Why are you using Babylon to judge Israel? And as he works through and God talks to him, God explains in the book of Habakkuk, and he does the same in the book of Jeremiah, that yes, I'm using Babylon to judge Israel because Israel had more light than Babylon did. But then he turns right around and he judges Babylon because they were so cruel and they were not following biblical principles of war in their war against Israel. And you think, well, why would Babylon have to follow God's principles of war? Because God's laws apply to every nation in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. And so, just because God allows two rebellious nations to duke it out with each other does not mean that he approves of either of those nations' methods of warfare. There's a reason I'm wanting to go down this rabbit trail. God's using them to judge each other, but he doesn't approve of their warfare. Now, in discussing biblical and unbiblical views of warfare, there are basically four views of warfare out there. The first you could just label, and it's an extreme, you could label as the doves. The doves who are pacifists, who are opposed to all war, they want peace. They want peace and utopia right now, but the timing is absolutely wrong. When nations are evil, there is no way that the Bible wants nations to lay down their arms, you know, to turn their swords into plowshares. That is naive in the highest. That is foolishness, if not insanity. God calls upon nations to defend their citizens. And the end of this book will show, yes, there's coming a time when swords will be traded in for plowshares, but it's only when the nations are pervasively Christian and are pervasively following God's law. So being a pacifist is naive in the context of evil aggressors out there. So that's the first extreme view, the doves. The other extreme are the hawks. The hawks are always looking for a fight or always meddling in the affairs of other nations. America is a hawk, probably not as hawkish as some nations, but it is a hawk. It's overly involved in affairs that the Bible would define as being none of its business. In Deuteronomy 2, there were various nations that God told Israel to leave alone. And Israel might have thought, but they're evil too. And God says, I don't care. I know that they kill people. They're evil against the innocent, but don't meddle in their affairs. I'll just give you a couple of references. Deuteronomy 2 verse 2, concerning the descendants of Esau, he says, do not meddle with them. Verse 19, he tells Israel, when you come near the people of Ammon, do not harass them or meddle with them. For sure, God rebukes those who love violence. Psalm 11, verse 5 says, the Lord hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. He does not, well, let me back up and say he doesn't disapprove of the violence itself. He commands it sometimes, right? What he's disapproving of, what he's hating is those who love violence. There is a big difference between being involved in violence and loving it. For example, one of my heroes is General Douglas MacArthur. He hated war. He said that a number of times. He did not like violence, but he said, hey, if we're going to go to war, we're going to go to win. We're not holding this line type of a thing. That's a biblical viewpoint. Now, in complete contrast, to General Douglas MacArthur is a friend of mine who told me one time, oh, I can hardly wait to go to Afghanistan so that I can kill ragheads. And I was shocked, and I asked him, why? And his answers had nothing whatsoever to do with the biblical reasons for violence. He just wanted, he thought it would be cool to watch heads explode. And I think that is ungodly, and that's an extreme form of hawkishness, okay? But Psalm 11, verse five says that God hates those who love violence. Proverbs 3, verse 31 warns us, do not envy the violent. We're not to glorify them as many movies do or emulate them. Then there's a third view that moves to war only when war is absolutely imperative for defensive purposes. It's the just war view. You only go to war as a last-ditch effort. Now it's closer to the biblical view, but it lacks the law of God to define it. Now if this defensive view of war were correct in every situation, then God would not have rebuked Israel for defending themselves against Roman invasion. Hey, this was a defensive war, but God still rebukes them. It's not an adequate defense. They could have pled. This is a just war cause that we're engaged in. If this defensive only view of war were an adequate definition, Jeremiah, in the book of Jeremiah, would not have told Israel to surrender to the Babylonians, okay? So the natural law basis for a just war theory is simply not adequate. The biblical view of war is that it's a necessary violence And I may have misspoken in years past, I can't find it anywhere, but I may have said necessary evil. It cannot be evil if God commands it, right? So war is not a necessary evil, it's a necessary violence that must be strictly circumscribed by God's law. The Bible must dictate when we go to war and when we sue for peace. Luke 14 verse 32 makes it quite clear. There are times when the most righteous thing to do for a nation is to sue for peace so that the nation doesn't get wiped out. And people say, well, that's a cowardly thing to do. No, there is a time in the law of God describes when that time would exist. The law must dictate who can go to war and who must stay at home. And for sure, it dictates that women should not be going to war. They should not be drafted by the military. It must dictate not only the goals and trajectory of the war, but also the means and the methods of that war. Example, in biblical law, the end never justifies the means, as so often happens in torture, forms of torture. Torture is an unbiblical methodology. War is engaged in to glorify God as a stewardship trust of citizens that must be protected. It can sometimes be offensive. It can sometimes be defensive. In fact, there's times in the scripture that authorize a preemptive first strike attack. perfectly biblical method. And there were Christians in the past in early America who actually used the Bible as some of their guides in their classes for military tactics. But anyway, There is no biblical, there is no abstract principle that dictates what happens. There is no simplistic judicial ethical divide. I think that concept has gotten way too many reconstructionists into trouble. We've got to do exegesis, the hard work, not the simplistic approach to ethical issues. And Bonson, I think, does a nice job of teaching those specifics in his lectures on war. By the way, God's methods of war reduce the death count significantly if you really understand those methods of war. Because any nation that attacks a Christian nation, if they follow these methods of war, they're going to feel sorry for it. It is an incredible deterrent. Sometimes a massive loss of life on the initial basis can spare much more loss of life over time. You talk to military strategists, they'll tell you. So our so-called civilized ways of doing things sometimes end up costing more lives. So even though we are seeing this Israel-Rome conflict as a judgment of God upon both nations, God does not endorse their methods of war. That's the thing I want to be crystal clear here. Well, let's move on. In verse 17, the angel calls the birds of heaven, come gather together to the great dinner of God. Now, what is shocking about this invitation to the dinner of God is God has just finished inviting people to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and they say, why would God juxtapose these two together? But commentators point out that when you really study the background to these two suppers, the thing that holds them together, they were sacrificial meals, sacrificial meals. Now, I think Chilton's comments are way inappropriate, very speculative, very far-fetched on this, but it is true that this is an allusion to Ezekiel 39 where the birds of the air are summoned to feast on the corpses after that war, and that war occurred at the time of Esther, and God five times speaks of that grisly feast for animals and birds as a sacrificial meal. What is a sacrificial meal? Well, after a sacrifice, there was a meal that sealed the fellowship between God and man. Well, here it's not men who are being invited to the feast. There's not a single man being invited to that feast. It's birds that are being invited to that feast. So it's more akin to the Noahic covenant where destruction of man brings about some peace to the rest of God's creation. Creation and God kind of have a reconciliation. Well, if the Lamb's sacrifice is rejected, and it was rejected by both Israel and Rome, there can be no fellowship with Him, and even creation suffers. Either Christ is crucified on our behalf and eaten in the Lord's table, so to speak, or rebels are destroyed and eaten. When animals were sacrificed, here's what would happen. They would many times cut these animals in half and people would walk between. A very vivid example of an entire nation marching between the pieces of an animal. And what they're symbolically saying is, hey, if I break this covenant, may I be cut apart like these animals are, and may I be eaten like these animals are going to be eaten. Okay, so that was the symbolism behind it. Very appropriate image for those who rejected Jesus. Now in this meal, the only ones who are at peace with God are the birds. They are the ones invited to the feast. So it's a hint that God's judgments on man help to cleanse the land and to restore some stability to the very creation which travails and groans over sin. God cares about the physical environment, and I think R.J. Rushduny in one of his lectures does a marvelous job of showing the connection between an increase of travail and catastrophe in nature when there is an increase of rebellion and sin among the nations, and a decrease of typhoons, earthquakes, and all these other disasters when there is an increase of righteousness in the nation. It's a fascinating discussion. So there tend to be many more tornadoes, typhoons, plagues, earthquakes, and other disasters during a time of moral declension, much more than during times of righteousness. And so this is, I think, a fantastic prelude to chapters 20 through 22, which show that when righteousness fills the earth, the very creation itself will find Christ's redemption changing it. Okay, verse 18 continues talking to the birds. Now some commentators absolutely cannot stomach it. I've actually got several commentaries that give one or two sentences to those two verses, and a couple that just skipped over it completely. It's like, they don't want that to exist. They for sure don't comment on it, but others are just very bold in saying that this is terrible. This is not good. For example, Jorgen Roloff called this an exceedingly crass image. Barclay, and some of you have Barclay's commentaries, he says, This is a bloodthirsty picture far more in line with Old Testament apocalyptic expectations than with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I would say, well, he obviously doesn't understand the gospel of Jesus Christ then, right? Because Matthew 24, 28, Jesus, who ought to know what the gospel is, uses exactly the same prophecy. Jesus said, for wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. So here's the point. God defines reality, not man. God defines what is consistent with the gospel, not man. But far from being contrary to the gospel, this deliberate contrast between the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and this Supper for the Birds shows the incredibly generous grace of God. We deserve exactly the same judgment that these people in verses 17 through 21 received. We deserve that, and yet God amazingly has invited us to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. It's incredible when you think about it. In Matthew 22, Jesus speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and He says that He invited all of these people over here, they refused. Then He says, go into the highways and byways, invite everyone to this feast. That's the amazing thing. All are invited, but none are worthy. All of us are worthy of the exact opposite. So Mounce worded it this way. The good news is that people need not bear the just punishment, do their sin, but that another, Jesus, has paid the price on their behalf. Only when people refuse forgiveness must they bear the penalty for their wickedness. But it does show the consequences of rejecting the gospel that was offered in the previous snapshot. All have the opportunity to be saved, and to be guests at God's banquet table, but those who do not will be dealt with as they deserve." Now in terms of what they deserve, you read in the commentaries, there are people troubled over who deserves what. I want you to notice that God does not let anyone off the hook in verse 18. As Romans 3 words it, there is none righteous, no not one. Now maybe you think your little sweet baby is an exception, but he says no. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. So in this verse, we see not only the commanders and the kings and the mighty men who were judged, but ordinary citizens, whether they are slaves or free, whether they are small or great. Now it's that word small that people recoil at because that refers to children. And people say, why would God even judge children? Surely they could not be deserving of this. They instantly recoil of that idea. But the scripture is clear that apart from the atonement of Jesus, children are deserving not just of that judgment, but of hell. Psalm 58, verse 3 says, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. He's saying, hey, children need a savior too. You don't just ignore them. There's no age of accountability. They need a savior too. Isaiah 48 verse 8 says, for I knew that you would deal very treacherously and were called a transgressor from the womb. So all are offered salvation. and all are worthy of judgment. And it is only because Jesus endured God's wrath for us that any of us can escape. So rather than criticizing God, we should be grateful to God for his generous offer. And that even includes welcoming children into his covenant, right? It's wonderful. It's wonderful. We should praise God. Verse 19 continues. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the one riding the horse and against his army. Now the Greek for gathered together is in the perfect tense, middle voice. Now the perfect tense means that this gathering took place before, with an abiding result. In other words, they're still gathered together, but the gathering happened months before. If you want to be precise, it was at the end of AD 69. that they were gathered together. But the middle voice indicates that someone else did the gathering. Beal is probably right when he says, the kings and their armies do not gather under their own power, but under satanic and demonic influence. You know, armies can be moved by satanic influence. Now the phrase to make wars in the errorist tense, They had earlier gathered together to fight against Jesus and his armies, and that initial resistance to Christ is past. Their time is up. God does not allow these two demons to engage in a new battle. The beast and the false prophet are captured before a battle can happen. So it's a little bit clearer in the Greek that the gathering happened in the past, and we examined how demons gathered human armies together to fight way back in chapter 17. Verse 20. So the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet, the one who performed signs in his presence, by which he had deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. The two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone." Now I'm going to try to tease that long verse apart into separate topics. First, God is now going to deal with the demon princes of Rome and of Israel. Now, the demon prince over Rome, who possessed Titus, was called the Beast. The demon prince who ruled over Israel, at least in the spiritual realm, and possessed Rabbi Ben-Zaccai, was called the Prophet. Both of them were earlier said to arise up out of the abyss. We already looked at both of them. They're very clearly demons. They're not men, they're demons, but they possess men, and so the men take on their name. And even the empire can take on their name. But here they are being disposed of in a way quite different from the way that Satan will be disposed of. And I want to talk about that a little bit, even though we're not going to chapter 20 today. Chapter 20 will show that Jesus is going to deal with Satan at exactly the same time. He's going to bind Satan in the abyss and he's going to be staying in the abyss until the second coming. Now that means Satan is currently in the heart of the earth. Most other demons are not, but Satan is. But there is special treatment given to the beast and false prophet in these verses. They're not gonna be allowed to join Satan in the abyss. They will be the first ones in all of human history to be cast into the lake of fire. Demons can be released and then rebound in the abyss, but it appears once you're cast into the lake of fire, there ain't any coming back. That is a permanent, permanent solution. Now, if you turn with me to Revelation 20 and verse 14, I'm going to show you the difference between the abyss where Satan will be bound and the lake of fire where these two are cast. Now, by the way, the abyss is a synonym for the Greek word Hades, the Hebrew word Sheol, which is in the heart of the earth. It is always down. Without exception, Sheol, Hades is down. Okay, look at Revelation 20, verse 14. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Now to repeat, Hades is in the heart of the earth. Revelation 20 says it's going to be emptied out at the second coming, at the end of history, and all of its inhabitants are going to be cast into the lake of fire at the second coming. But it wasn't just unbelievers that were in Hades before Christ's resurrection. All saints went down to Sheol, Hades. Ephesians 4.9 says that Jesus' soul descended into the lower parts of the earth. Acts 2.31 says the same thing, but uses the word Hades. It says Jesus' soul was in Hades for three days and three nights. Now this is why some people mistakenly think that Jesus spent three days and three nights in hell. Because Hades sometimes is associated with hell, right? But he did not. He told the thief on the cross, this day you will be with me in paradise. And if you read Luke 16, it's a very easy, I've got a long, long paper that shows every reference to Hades' shield, gives a discussion on them. But Luke 16 is an easy way to look at it. Both the rich man and the beggar were in Hades, but it was divided into two compartments that nobody could cross across. There was Upper Hades, which was called Paradise. There was Lower Hades, where there was torment and fire. But both of them are called Hades. In the Old Testament, they're called Sheol. So what happened at Christ's resurrection is he emptied upper Hades and he led them in what one of the gospels, I forget if it's Luke or where it is, calls an exodus. He led them in an exodus out of Hades up into heaven. So nowadays, anytime you and I die, we are instantly in heaven. We don't go down to Hades anymore. But that's not true of unbelievers. Unbelievers go to lower Hades, which is a provisional place of fire and torment. They're not in the lake of fire yet, But this verse says that at the second coming, everybody in Hades is going to be cast into the lake of fire. So what is the lake of fire? We're told in Matthew 25, verse 41, that it's already created, and thus it is something that's already in existence. So it should be somewhere in our universe. But apparently it exists in what Jesus called outer darkness, Matthew 25, 30. Matthew 8 verse 12, Matthew 22 verse 13. So how could there be fire in outer darkness? This is only a theory, okay, but I'm going to give you my theory. I don't usually give theories from the pulpit, but I think it's close enough. I base it on the fact that it's already in existence. It's part of our universe. So think of it this way. Outer space is outer darkness for sure. But imagine a giant sun placed by God way outside the visible range of light from any other star. That would be outer darkness. And the sun is literally a shoreless lake of liquid gases that are on fire. That's different than Hades, which is not outer at all. It is inner. It is in the heart of the earth. It's in the lower parts of the earth. Matthew 11, 23 speaks of being brought down to Hades. Proverbs 1.12 speaks of the dead being brought down to Sheol, down to the abyss. Samuel's soul came up from Sheol. So Hades or Sheol is not outer, it's inner. So it's my belief that in 80-70, Satan was confined to the abyss in the heart of the earth, but that the beast and the false prophet were the first ones in all of human history to be cast into the lake of fire. Now keep in mind, they are demons. Two demons. Revelation 11, 7 says that the beast came up out of the abyss. Revelation 17, 18 says the same thing. But when we get to Revelation 20, verse 10, it says that when Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire at the second coming, at the end of history, the beast and the false prophet are already there. They're already there. Okay, so again, it shows a distinction. And note that God does not destroy them. He casts them in alive. Every soul in Hades is alive. And there are scriptures in the Old Testament that talk about these people who are in torment, talking with each other, talking to newcomers who have just now come into Hades. People are alive in the Lake of Fire. Currently, it appears that there are only two lonely occupants there, but they will be joined by others at the second coming. Oh, by the way, this is a great proof against annihilationism. There are some people who believe that the moment you're cast into hell, boof, you disappear. You're annihilated. But I want you to notice in the passages that we've just gone through that in 8070, the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. However many thousands of years later at the second coming, Satan is cast there and the beast and the false prophet are still there. They're there thousands of years. So it's not annihilationism. It is something that is eternal. Now the middle part of verse 20 describes the false prophet as the one who performed signs in his presence by which he had deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped his image. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai had no power in himself to do the incredible miracles that he performed. He did it with the help of this demon. And we already looked at some of the incredible miracles, including calling down fire from heaven, making statues speak, all of that kind of stuff we documented. But that was all done by this demon, the false prophet. And the demon did it. in the presence of the second demon, the beast who possessed Titus, in order to get Jews to worship the image of the beast. And we saw he was successful. And they continued to do that. We've got documentation. They continued to do that at least for the next three to four years, up until 8074, if not beyond that. But demons move people to false worship. Now verse 21 says, and the rest were killed by the sword that proceeds from the mouth of the one riding the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. The rest of whom? Well, it's the rest of the ones that he talked about in verses 17 through 18, the ones who had been killed. They were killed by the sword, but the beast and the false prophet can't be killed with the sword because they're spirits, they're demons. Dennis Johnson is an idealist, but he makes a good point when he says, The fact that the beast and false prophet are thrown alive into the fiery lake, whereas their followers are slain by the sword, confirms that the beast and the false prophet, like the harlot of Babylon, symbolize not particular human individuals, Now, contrary to me, he thinks they're just institutions, but his point, he recognizes they're deliberately being distinguished from humans who can be killed. And then he goes on to say this, if the beast and the false prophet portrayed were human beings, there'd be no reason for Christ to spare them the first death, physical death, before casting them into the second death, the lake of fire. Their followers will experience both. And I think he is spot on. in that observation. So it's yet another hint that the beast and the false prophet were demons who were going to be confined in the lake of fire and outer darkness forever and ever. This is not talking about the death of Titus or the death of Rabbi Ben Zakkai. It's the judgment of the demons who possessed them. Now there are plenty of other demons to take their place, but God takes care of these two to show the trajectory that Zechariah speaks about that of all demons are at some point in history going to be completely cleansed from the world. Eventually there will be no more demons on earth. They'll either be confined to Hades or to the Lake of Fire. Now it's my interpretation that most if not all remaining demons will eventually be in the abyss. And not in the Lake of Fire. I don't think any other than the Beast and the False Prophet will be in the Lake of Fire when Christ comes back. And I'll give proof of that when we get into Chapter 20. Now, one question that might arise in your heads is, why was Satan not confined in the Lake of Fire just like the Beast and the False Prophet were? After all, he's the most powerful demon you'd think he would be taking care of. Well, I'm glad you asked that question. I believe the reason is because God still has a purpose for him at the end of history. On the day of resurrection, at the end of history, Satan and all demons will be released from the abyss And they will try to gather all newly resurrected humans, all other unleashed demons, trillions of them, into one last desperate battle. That'll be the time in human history where everyone who was non-elect, well, with the exception of the beast and the false prophet, but everyone else who was not elect, will be allowed to try their hardest to fight against God. But before they can even engage the elect, God defeats them and involves the saints in judging them. So while God has no more purpose for the beast or the false prophet, he has one last necessary purpose for Satan to showcase his grace and his judgment. And that will occur on the last day of history. So that's the meaning of the passage. And the only additional comment that I would make is think to yourself sometime Is America really any better than Israel and Rome were? You know, you might say, well, Israel and Rome had transvestitism and homosexuality, but so does America. You know, Israel and Rome both rejected God's law on a grand scale, but so does America. Both Rome and Israel persecuted the church. Okay, well, that would be an area where they were worse than America is. But in the last decade, you're seeing a sharp increase in the number of cases where there has been deliberate persecution against Christians in America. My point is, I think America is very fast heading down a trajectory to a judgment. It's on a dangerous road, and we need to pray like the remnant did. We need to evangelize as the remnant did. We need to seek to influence as the remnant did and pray for reformation. And if God and His sovereignty doesn't bring reformation, we need to also seek to be prepared to face tough times. Will tough times come? I wouldn't dare to predict. Only God knows. And, you know, we saw last week that one of the crowns of Christ symbolizes the fact there is a certain degree of mystery to the way in which He governs. His purposes are much more complex than our wishes might be. But the general principles tell us to prepare. So that's all I'll say this morning. May God encourage you to be totally faithful to Him in tough times. Amen. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your warnings. We thank you for your incredible grace that is showcased in the marriage supper of the Lamb and in the evangelism in the last snapshot. We're also grateful father that you don't ignore sin that you hate sin and you love righteousness And it is another assurance that we have that you are moving planet earth Toward that day when it will be filled with the knowledge of you as deeply as the oceans waters cover the ocean beds we long for that time we long for the righteousness and the peace and the the showcasing of your redemption that will give. But in the meantime, Father, may we lay our lives down for you and offer up every aspect of our being for continued sanctification to your grace. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.