I'm going to be reading from Revelation 20, and the majority text is on page 21. If you're following in the New King James, you will notice a phrase that is added in verse 2 that's not in the New King James. But it is in the majority of Greek manuscripts, and it's certainly in all of the ecclesiastical text. And it is, I think, really important for the interpretation of this, and it adds great dimension to what we've just been singing of why it is we can rejoice through even the trials that we are in. Hear God's Word. And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a huge chain on his hand. And he seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is a slanderer, even Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him so that he should not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. And after these years, he must be loosed for a short time. Amen. Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we pray that as we dig into it, that Your encouragement would be our encouragement, that we would see life as You see it, that You would enable me to faithfully communicate this Scripture to this, Your people, and that they would be built up in the most holy faith. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, Revelation is a fun chapter, but it also has the potential for being a very confusing chapter, and I hope that I don't make it any more confusing than it needs to be. Really, this would be a pretty easy and straightforward 20-minute sermon if it was not for so much bad stuff being written on this. And you might think, well, why not just preach that and forget about all of the error? Well, part of the reason we can't ignore these controversies is they are so deeply embedded in modern 21st century evangelical culture that you will see us talking in some of these terms ordinarily, and I really do need to deal with these things. How you interpret the first three verses is critical to how you understand chapters 20 through 22. So we're going to be digging a little bit deeper today. I should also mention this is the first chapter that in absolute terms almost has to divide between three schools of eschatology known as amillennialism, premillennialism, and postmillennialism, at least on the thousand years and the nature and timing of the binding of Satan. And let me define those three terms. The awe in amillennialism means no. No millennium. No golden age on earth. In fact, most amillennialists don't even see the thousand years as having anything to do with earth. It has to do with those who have gone to heaven. and the thousand years the kingdom of heaven. The pre in pre-millennialism means that Jesus Christ is coming back before a future 1,000 years. So pre-thousand, pre-millennium. Millennium simply means thousand years, okay? So pre-thousand. The post in post-millennialism means that Jesus Christ is coming back after the world is Christianized, in other words, after the thousand years, so post-thousand, post-millennial. Okay, so those are the three main divisions, and I wish it was as easy as that, but the reality is there are a whole bunch of subdivisions of those three schools, so much so that it is bewildering to look at all of this variety. And I want to emphasize that very intelligent and very godly men and women have held to all of these different viewpoints, and I don't pretend to say the last word on this subject today. Now, I think I've nailed it, otherwise I wouldn't be preaching it this morning, but I do want to be humble and recognize these are chapters that the worldwide church of God is still seeking to wrestle through. But having said that, I do believe that my approach to Revelation has significantly simplified our understanding of Revelation thus far. And by the time we get all the way through chapters 20 through 21, you're going to think, Our approach to this book is way, way simpler than any of the other approaches to these chapters. It solves conundrums in the previous chapters that other approaches have been mystified by. And at least for me, the same is true of this chapter. This chapter actually is quite easy for me. Very, very straightforward. It doesn't have the moving forward and then backwards. back and forth that is so confusing in other systems. Let me explain five of the rules that I have followed as I studied this chapter in the past 30 years. My first rule is to not keep my mind from being able to be corrected by simply defending my system. My goal is to understand what the text says and not to try to fit the text into a predefined system, whether that is premillennialism, amillennialism, or postmillennialism. In his commentary, Mounts, who is a premillennialist, rightly complains The tendency of many interpreters at this point is to become apologists for a particular view of the millennium. And I think he is absolutely right. I have seen too many commentaries, even in my own school of interpretation on this, who are blinded to things that the text says so clearly, but they're blinded to it because they're trying to impose their system on the text of this chapter rather than allowing the chapter to correct and to change their system. I think it's especially true in the nature of the resurrections. Now, as I've already mentioned, there are godly and intelligent people who hold to all three schools of eschatology, and if they're indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, it's extremely unlikely they're going to be 100% wrong in everything that they say. I have learned from all three schools of eschatology in my analysis of this. As I've been puzzling through this over a period of more than 30 years, actually, I've tried to look at the insights and be open to what God is speaking through this text. And on the first three verses, you're going to notice I've learned from the amillennialists in terms of the nature of the thousand years. Obviously, I've got some corrections to how they lay it out. I've learned from the postmillennialists that the undeceiving of the nations in verse 3 is referring, especially when you look at the rest of the chapter, it's referring to the conversion of those nations. And I also agree with postmillennialists that Christ comes back post or after the thousand years, whatever those thousand years are. I've also learned from the premillennialists that the two resurrections really are literal, physical resurrections, one which occurs before the thousand years, the other which occurs at the end of the thousand years. Now, obviously, I hold to a different timing than they hold to, but their arguments are, I think, watertight. I have never seen, down through the years, anybody from the other schools be able to answer adequately the premillennialist arguments on two literal resurrections. The point is that each school of eschatology has strong exegetical proofs on at least parts and pieces of this chapter. And I think we rob ourselves of God-given insights if we only read books from within our circles. And so I've learned a great deal by looking at the insights of all three schools. Second, we've seen all through this book that the structure of the book helps us to interpret the book. The structure is so important. On most books of the Bible it's important, but particularly on this one. And it was one of the reasons why I refused to preach on this book until I really felt like I understood the Hebraic structure that was emerging from the text. It's a God-given structure, and if we would follow it consistently, it would resolve many of the supposed problems that people scratch their heads over. So just as we have seen that the inspired structure of this book has resolved debates earlier in the book, that structure has automatically forced me to certain conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable those conclusions initially might have seemed to be. And I'll just give you an example of how structure has driven my exegesis in this passage. Some of you already know that in the past, I hadn't made my mind up. I was open to two different possible ideas on this binding of Satan. I was open to the amillennial idea that the binding was metaphorical and started in 8030, and I was open to the idea of many postmills and premills that, no, there was a literal binding, or at least the binding was in some way future to us, and it hasn't even happened yet. So I was open to both of those things, but the structure, as I've managed to look at how the structure impacts, I began to realize I cannot adopt either one of those views. In the past, I think my interpretation was blinded by having a binary view. It's either this or it's this. Which one makes sense? Well, neither one of them makes sense. There's a third option, that once you adopt it, completely evaporates the tension. Let me explain what I'm talking about. Everybody agrees that we are in the last section of the book of Revelation, But the divine structure shows that this section does not start in chapter 20. That's the key thing. It does not start in chapter 20. If you look at the handout that looks like this, it's got a picture of the seven-headed monster coming out of the fire, and it's got a statue that's toppling. You will see on this structure that the book is divided up into seven major sections, and each of those has seven subdivisions in it. each of those major sections has an introduction, which is the blue text. So each of those seven sections begins with some blue text. So if you look way down at the bottom, bottom left, right next to the big B at the bottom, the red B, you will see some blue text at the bottom that is the introduction to our section. And And you will see that that introduction starts in chapter 19, verse 11. And if it didn't, we wouldn't have any introduction to this section of the book, and the book would lose its symmetry. Every one of the seven sections of the book has an introduction, and the introduction to this section goes from chapter 19, verse 11 to chapter 19, verse 21. Well, if you buy into that, automatically it indicates that the events of the first three verses of chapter 20 have to start after the events of chapter 19. They have to start after the events of chapter 19. Now, most postmills and awe mills miss that. In other words, the thousand years does not begin at 8030, and it does not begin thousands of years in our future. It begins in 80-70, right after the events of chapter 19. So all through this book, I have sought to be faithful to the divinely inspired structure that I've put into your hands here, and we're going to be seeing how it makes a huge difference in our interpretation. Third, Just as I've done throughout the book, I take the sequence and the timing words very seriously. Now, several interpretations are ruled out when you do so. And even this past week, as I was reading through various commentaries, I was really surprised to see the extensive ways and the creative ways in which they tried to say that even though it looks like this follows that, that it can't be. It just has to be earlier, but the has to be does not flow from the text. It flows from their system that they are imposing upon the text. So, They rationalize seemingly sequential terms, not just in this chapter, but in the next two chapters as well. And we have seen numerous times in the book that you really mess up your exegesis when you ignore the time sequence indicators. They are clues to interpretation. Fourth, because this book is rooted in the Old Testament, and because it is prophetic literature, not apocalyptic literature. You read through the commentaries and so many people call it apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature was pagan literature. It was unbelieving Jewish literature and other sources, Gnostic literature. It had nothing to do with the Bible. This is prophetic literature following the rules of prophecy, has nothing whatsoever to do with apocalyptic literature. Well that means that we should not be going to pagan sources to try to understand this. A Beal's commentary, as helpful as it is in many different ways, is too enamored with the apocalyptic literature and is constantly going to these unbelieving sources. In fact, sometimes in this book he says John got his ideas exclusively from these apocalyptic literature places. And I say, no, no, absolutely not. This is a book that is absolutely immersed in the Old Testament, and you don't have to go outside the Bible in order to be able to interpret the Bible. So when you're going outside, you've finished your exegesis, and you say, okay, now we can go outside for illustrative purposes to see, okay, yes, this is the way it was fulfilled in history. But you don't use the outside to interpret. And even in terms of looking at words, we should not be imposing what we think of as common sense interpretations of words. Our common sense is 21st century Western thinking. And many times people use that, and they're misunderstanding how John as a Hebrew prophet would have been using those words. And then finally, I've got one more handout here that we won't get into actually today, but I do want you to at least have it for the remainder of these chapters here. Your view of last days, this age, and the age to come, which are the major demarcations of history, impact your interpretation of this chapter and the next two chapters. Too often people will use a system approach to define those things rather than an exegetical approach. When you, at your leisure in the future, when you start looking at that, you're going to see a number of Scriptures, actually it's 1 through 14 of those Scriptures there that are in red. They absolutely demolish every other interpretation except for the interpretation that says the last days began before the birth of Jesus. In fact, centuries before the birth of Jesus and terminated in AD 70. Okay, there's a number of views of these terms, this age, the age to come, last days and all of that, that mess up on these verses. So if you're exegetically based, all of a sudden things begin to be simplified in these last chapters. Now I'll stop there because I don't want to overwhelm you with too much information on these debates, but let's start diving into the text and see where it takes us. First words are, and I saw. Now depending on what versions you have in your hand, quite a few versions say, then I saw. So why the difference? Is it and I saw or then I saw? Well, the difference is that the word and in the Greek as well as in the Hebrew can either show logical sequence or chronological sequence. And you have commentators that land on both sides of that divide. Now, I believe there are five arguments that show that the first three verses happen chronologically after chapter 19. And realizing this some years ago, turned my whole paradigm upside down, and the pieces began to fall together. First, we have seen in the past that John frequently uses the word, and, following, as you would expect a Hebrew prophet to do, following the Hebrew rules of grammar. And people say, but this is a Greek book. Why would he follow the Hebrew rules of grammar? Well, almost any commentary you look at agrees that the grammar does follow Hebraic structure, does not follow the normal rules of Greek syntax. So you'll have grammars that are just for this book. because this is the one book that follows the Hebrew covenant lawsuit structure. So it's very normal to think of it this way. Anyway, one of those Hebraic rules of grammar is known as the WoW consecutive, where the and shows historical sequence. And John has already used that word and in exactly that way 15 times in the previous chapter. Okay, so it's not something new that we're coming up with. Actually, in the previous chapters before that, he's used it over and over again. So that premillennialist Wolvard points out, and correctly points out, quote, there is thus no linguistic or grammatical suggestion that these events are anything other than events following chapter 19 and occurring in sequence. This is the one place where I stand solidly with the premillennialists and over against most amillennialists and most postmillennialists. He is absolutely right on the grammar. Now, people resist it because they think that's going to lead to premillennialism. It doesn't. I should mention that Wolver doesn't realize it. This very fact completely overthrows premillennialism. So there's nothing to worry about here, but at least he gets the grammatical sequence correct. Second, I've already mentioned that the structure of the book itself connects chapter 20 with the last portion of chapter 19. I think it absolutely necessitates that we translate it the way the New King James does, with a then rather than an and. An and could go either way. A then goes chronologically. So here's the point. In terms of the structure, it would be very odd to have an introduction that ends in 8070 And then to go back and deal with 8030, totally different subject, or go thousands of years into the future, that would be to completely disconnect the introduction from this section. Does that make sense? Third, the introduction deals with the beast and the false prophet who killed God's people, and verse four of our chapter picks up on exactly those themes as if they had just happened. At least thematically, he's connecting the two. Everybody agrees with that. But you read the text and it seems like, no, chronologically he is connecting the two as well. Fourth, commentators point out that there is a causal connection that is at least implied in these verses. In chapter 19, Christ deals with the beast and false prophet when he comes in judgment. And chapter 20 shows Jesus dealing with the cause of all that trouble. The cause is Satan, Satan himself. They're all wrapped up together. And then lastly, Mounts, who is also a premillennialist that I have learned from, points out that with the strong impression of sequence of these chapters, quote, the interpretation that discovers recapitulation for the segment chapter 20, verses one through six, must at least bear the burden of proof. Now, recapitulation means going backwards and starting all over again. So he says it's the recapitulationists who have the burden of truth when all of these evidences seem to indicate there is a sequence going forward. And I think that is correct. Now, I've looked at their attempts. to prove that there's recapitulation. They are not very convincing proofs at all. So with that being said, we can rule out a multitude of interpretations with one fell swoop. Most all mills place chapter 19 at the very end of history And then they have chapter 20 going back to A.D. 30. Okay. That doesn't work with sequence or with structure. Most premills, they're good with the sequence. Why? Because they place both chapter 19 and 20 way off into our future. But the problem with that is as they're going through sequence, they realize, wait a minute, at the end of chapter 20, we're coming to the very, very end of history. And they feel on their interpretation that chapter 21 has to begin the millennium, so they're recapitulating 1,000 years back, even though chapter 21 begins with exactly the same sequence indicator that this chapter does. So they're not being consistent there. My view sees the main theme of verses 1 through 3, the binding of Satan, as occurring immediately after chapter 19. The first resurrection in verse 4 follows immediately after that, still in 80-70. Very simple, straightforward interpretation of sequence all through these chapters. Now verse 1 goes on to say, and I saw an angel. Now commentators point out this angel was without any description, and I believe deliberately so. If the angel had been described as a glorious, a great, mighty being, we might assume that he was up to the fight. He was one who overcame Satan because of his own power. But the fact of the matter is, even Michael the archangel, who was the mightiest, most powerful of God's elect angels, was no match for Satan. And we learn that from Jude 9, where it says that Michael dared not bring a railing accusation against Satan, but said, the Lord rebuke you. He dared not take Satan on alone, so he appeals to heaven. So what is a nondescript angel, much lesser than Michael the archangel, what's he doing on this scene? He is showcasing the fact that when we have heaven on our side, even a no-name angel can dispose of Satan. Okay? That's encouraging to the Christians who fear demons. And that's why verse 1 goes on to say, and I saw an angel coming down from heaven. When backed up from heaven, our lack of power or an angel's lack of power is irrelevant. And as Leon Morris words it, the final unimportance of Satan is perhaps indicated in the fact that it's not the Father who deals with him, nor the Christ, but only an unnamed angel. And what had heaven granted this angel? Well, first he had a key to the abyss, and so this implies that he's got the ability to open and close the abyss. Apparently there is no one inside of the abyss who had a key to be able to get out. This has to be open from the outside, and it has to be with heaven's permission. Now in chapter 9, we've got, I believe, exactly the same angel given a key. And in AD 66, he unlocks the abyss and billions of angels came out of the abyss and begin to afflict the world. So now begins the process of confining some of those same demons back inside the abyss. And by the way, Satan, he knew in AD 66 that he had only a short time remaining. before he would be bound. You can read that in Revelation 12, verse 12, where he says he was so angry because, and he's doing everything that he can because he has only a short time remaining. Well, so too, other demons know that they can be bound in the abyss by Christians, and they too have a timetable. For example, Luke 8 says that the legions of demons begged Jesus that he would not command them to go into the abyss And in the parallel passage in Matthew, Matthew 8, 29, it says that they were worried that Jesus would send them to torment them before their time. So they knew they, too, have a timetable in which they can work on the earth. And after that timetable is done, they are going to be bound. In Luke 10, 19, Jesus gave the church the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, so those are names of certain types of demons, and over all the power of the enemy. And the church today, I believe, should be actively binding more and more demons into the abyss. This angel starts the process that ongoing spiritual warfare will continue. Now let me just give you a tiny hint of how this process is going to happen. Zechariah 13-14 is an absolutely amazing passage that talks about all of the things that we've just finished talking about in Revelation in the previous chapters. He talks about the great tribulation against Christians. He talks about the war against Jerusalem. He talks about the end of prophecy, Mount Vesuvius blowing up, the scattering of the Jews to the nations, the growth of the kingdom worldwide until the entire world is converted, and even the bells on the horses are holiness to the Lord. So it's an amazing passage, but Let me give you part of that trajectory in Zechariah 13 through 14. It's this prophecy. I will also cause the unclean spirit to depart from the land. Okay, this is the trajectory of history. Eventually there will be a long period of time which no demons will be found anywhere in the world. Well, the binding of the demon beast, that was in chapter 19, right? Binding of the demon beast, the demon false prophet, and now Satan, the prince of all demons, begins the process of the binding of Satan's kingdom. Now, with trillions and trillions of demons on the earth, this may take a long time to accomplish, but when the three most evil and most powerful of the demons have been bound so easily by this nondescript angel, it gives us confidence that we too can bind the rest of the demons with heaven's help and in heaven's timetable. Now, the text goes on, having the key of the abyss and a huge chain in his hand. Was this a literal chain or a metaphorical chain? Well, it depends on what you mean by literal. I don't think it was a metal chain. Metal doesn't seem to be able to contain and hold demons. Angels can walk right through prison doors too, right? So people say, okay, then it must be metaphorical. I say, no, that's a false dilemma. I believe that angels have literal swords And just because they're made of different material than our swords does not mean they're literal. Well, in the same way, I think this is a literal key and a literal chain that is necessary for the binding of Satan in some way. We don't know what it's made of, but they are tools of imprisonment. And people say, but Revelation's full of symbols. Yes, it is. This is a symbol of the beginning of the downfall of Satan's kingdom, but the symbols are also literal events. Now, verses 2 through 3 go on to say, And he seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who was a slanderer, even Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth. and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him." Now, all four titles of Satan were given earlier in the book, and all four descriptions are full of Old Testament meaning. First one, he's likened to a deadly dragon. Well, you read in Zechariah 14, verse 1, and you see that this deadly dragon is going to have his time on earth ended when? in A.D. 70, and we've looked at that before. I'll look at it again later this morning. He's called the ancient serpent, and he's called ancient because he is ancient. He goes way back. Genesis 3, the serpent is tempting Eve, right, in the Garden of Eden. And he promised way back then that his head would be crushed. Well, Christ legally crushed his head on the cross But there's more that's left, because the book of Romans tells the Christians there that the God of peace will crush Satan under your head, not in the past, but shortly. And so Satan was crushed, pierced, and sent to hell in AD 70. Satan is called the slanderer because just as he slandered Job to God in Job 1 through 2, he'd been involved in the work of slander ever since. Now, there was a limitation of that in AD 66. He's cast out of heaven, so no longer can he go into heaven to slander us as he did in Job, but he was on the earth slandering until AD 70. And he's called Satan, which means adversary. He was a fierce adversary. Now, here's the point. Here's the point of all of those titles. If the worst of the worst of the worst of all enemies, as described in those four titles, was bound so easily by this nondescript angel, it gives us hope in our duty to bind other demons. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can stand against God's kingdom. It is all a matter of timing. But his binding is next described in verse 3. And he threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him. Now, as could be expected, there's controversy over the nature and the timing of this binding. I mean, what's surprising, right? In the book of Revelation, it seems every chapter has controversy. And I wanna give you some of the inadequate views. Some people believe that Satan was only restricted in his activities and that this restriction was only a restriction put on him so that he could not touch believers. they do not see this as applying to unbelievers. Now, there's two problems with that interpretation, and the first is it blatantly contradicts verse 3. But another problem is it fails to show a contrast between pre-cross and post-cross history. And why do I say that? Well, Satan had been restricted in his access to Christians long before the cross. Just read Job 1 through 2. Satan is complaining bitterly to God, look, just let me have that Satan. You put a hedge around him. I can't get at him. Okay, there's a restriction. There's boundaries that were put into Satan's life. So where is the contrast? There is much more of a restriction that's happening in 8070, and we need to see what that is. A second inadequate theory invented by Amillennialists is that Satan was bound in 8030 only in the sense that Gentiles can no longer be kept from believing. They translate verse 3 a little bit differently. They translate it this way, so that he should deceive the Gentiles no more till the thousand years were finished. And they call our time the time of the Gentiles, which it is. time when many Gentiles will be converted. Well, I agree with that. It's true that the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth, and there are a ton of Gentiles that have believed compared to previously. So it's a bit more credible than the previous interpretation. But here's my problem. Why did they start this in AD 30? The next forty years, actually, it was… the Gentiles were a minority compared to the Jews throughout the Roman Empire, and even beyond the Roman Empire. How is this different from the remnant of the Gentiles being saved If it's a remnant, and that's what all Millennialists believe, there's never a growth, it's always a remnant of Gentiles being saved in any period of the New Covenant. How is that different than a remnant of Gentiles being saved prior to the cross? There were always Gentiles being saved. David had a huge army of bodyguards called the Pelethites and the Cherethites. They were all Philistine converts. You look in Esther, Esther 8 verse 17, it says, many Gentiles became Jews, so they converted, became believers. How is a remnant being saved from the Gentiles after the cross any different from a remnant being saved from the Gentiles before the cross? I just don't see the contrast that they are trying to draw. So a split off of this group says that this change happened in 8070. Prior to AD 70, the church was predominantly Jewish, but after AD 70, it was predominantly Gentile, and that's true. So post AD 70 history is the times of the Gentiles. It does fit a little bit better, but this metaphorical view does not do justice to the seven words, and I'll look at those in a bit, the seven words describing this binding. And secondly, both theories two and three put a huge gap between chapters 19 and 20. They see chapter 19 is in the future, And then chapter 20 is going back to 8070 or to 8030. So even though it has some credibility, it messes up on the timing. The fourth inadequate theory has been proposed by some post-millennialists. It is that Satan is only bound in the sense that he will no longer be able to stop entire nations from being Christianized. So he still roams around on planet Earth, according to them, but he can't stop nations from believing. Now, I think it does at least take seriously the phrase in verse three that says, so that he should not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. So let me explain their theory. There is some validity to it, even though I don't think it goes far enough. They correctly say that if Satan can no longer deceive the nations, then those nations should be able to be converted if the church is doing its job. And I'll explain why later. They say that the contrast between the undeceived nations And then the deceived nations at the end of history is the contrast between an entirely Christianized world and then a final falling away of those nations at the end of history. Okay? That's where I park company with them. They see the nations as backsliding so badly at the end of history that they attack and seek to destroy the true church, and then Christ comes back. deals with them before they can do any damage. Now I've read an interesting sci-fi trilogy that the Millers gave me that kind of takes this view. It's actually worth a read. But even though this is a far stronger view, and I used to hold to it, I believe it does not do justice to the seven words of binding that I'll go ahead and describe now in my theory. My theory is that in A.D. 70, Satan was actually bound in exactly the same way that the beast and the false prophet were bound. All three of them are absent from our lives. But because God has a plan for Satan at the end of history, does not cast Satan into the lake of fire, He casts him into the abyss where all other unbelievers are currently waiting for the final resurrection. And the reason I think it was an actual imprisonment, actually a number of reasons, but the first one, just look, listen to the seven descriptions of this binding. It sure sounds to me like a maximum security prison that's being described. The key? the huge chain, seizing him, binding him, throwing him into the abyss, locking the abyss, and then sealing the abyss. Wow, that seems like overkill description if he's just talking about a metaphorical restriction, but Satan's still able to wander anywhere he wants to wander in this world. What's the point of seizing the dragon if you're going to let him go and wander where he wills? How is restricting what he can do on the planet, which is what they say, in any way a casting of him into the abyss? Everywhere else in the book of Revelation, the abyss has been a literal place. Why does it suddenly become metaphorical when you get to chapter 20? And for that matter, why do you only have one angel assigned with him for the next however many thousand years? Is there one angel that follows him around to make sure that he's not transgressing these restrictions put upon him? While these commentators write a great deal about the binding of Satan, they don't take seriously or spend much time on the seizing, throwing, locking, and sealing. The metaphorical sense just does not make sense to me. These seven descriptions sound much more like a maximum security prison from which Satan cannot escape until God releases him. Second, the previous time when the same angel is given the key to the abyss, What happens? Demons come up out of the abyss. It was a literal unleashing of demons from a literal place. And then in verses 7 through 10 of our chapter, the same words are used of Satan and the dead, unbelieving nations coming up out of the depth of the earth. So when you compare those three passages with each other, I just don't see how you can take the abyss as metaphorical or merely symbolical. My third criticism of the metaphorical binding doesn't actually apply to theory four, but it does apply to the first three amillennial bindings. And that's the structure. Okay, I've already mentioned that chapter 19 ends in 8070, not in 8030. And this occurs right after the binding of the beast and the false prophet in chapter 19. So it means whatever the binding or the restrictions that are put in place in 8070, they must be more, follow the logic here, whatever restrictions are binding He puts, whether metaphorical or otherwise, in 8770, it must be more than the restrictions that were placed upon Him before 8070 and after the cross. And between 30 and 80, 70, there were enormous restrictions put upon Satan. Let me read you some of these encouraging scriptures that show the degree to which all demons were hugely restricted after the resurrection. We all know the verses that say Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over demons. Powerful verses. We all know that in the next chapter, Luke chapter 10, he gave the 70 the same power and authority over all of the demonic powers. But then in Mark 14, 17 through 18, which are the last verses of Mark, he says that after the resurrection, every believer will have the same power over the demonic. The moment they believe, they're going to have power to cast out demons. That is huge. That is something way beyond the power that any believer had prior to the time of Christ. No believer had the power to cast out demons in the Old Testament. So it's a sign that the kingdom had come in some way. But there's more. Listen to the following scriptures. Hebrews 2.14 says that through Christ's death, Jesus rendered Satan powerless over believers. That's incredible. The Greek word kathargeo does not mean to destroy as the New King James translates it. Here's the dictionary definition, the full definition. To cause something to lose its power or effectiveness, to invalidate, to make powerless. Satan was rendered powerless in the first century by the cross and resurrection. So whatever happened, whatever binding happened in 80-70, It must be more than that, or it makes no sense out of the passage. There's an additional binding. He is prohibited from doing something he had been doing prior to A.D. 70. Does that make sense logically? How can you have a greater metaphorical binding than to be rendered powerless? Now, perhaps Theory 4 can account for that, but in light of the way the Great Commission is worded, I doubt it. Colossians 2.15 says of Jesus, Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. What an incredible comfort to first-century Christians. Yes, they were in a battle, but Jesus disarmed the demonic enemies. Colossians 1.13 says, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. So every believer has been delivered from the power of darkness, and that was before AD 70. There's something more going on in our chapter. 1 John 4.4 assures believers, You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. So they're overcoming demons before 8070. Revelation 12.9 says that Satan was cast out of heaven in 8066, so that's a major restriction put on his life before 8070. He can no longer go into the heavenlies. And then verse 11 says that the saints overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. That happened before 87, we must expect something more after 80, 70. 1 John 3, 8 says that Jesus was destroying the works of the devil ever since the cross. James 4, 7 guaranteed Christians that when they resisted Satan, Satan must flee from them. So His power was drastically limited by the cross. 2 Thessalonians 2, 6-7 shows that even during the tribulation years leading up to 80-70, the power and activity of the beast, even the beast, was restrained. And the word katecho means to keep within limits, to restrain. In fact, that's almost exactly what people claim the binding of our passage, which is a different word, means. No, that's not what it means. Katecho means within limits or restraints. So whatever restraint is put upon Satan after 80-70 must be greater than all of those things. And let me tell you something, as powerless as the amillennial idea of restraint is, and you talk to most of them, Things are getting worse and worse. Satan's winning. We're losing. It doesn't sound like restraint to me, and I fail to see how their interpretation does justice to the passage. But if Satan was literally bound and imprisoned in the abyss in AD 70, then it is the time to plunder his kingdom and to bind the rest of his agents. It makes even more sense of theory four if there's a literal and not merely a metaphorical binding. Jesus said about Satan, no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man and then he will plunder his house. Well, Christ's life and death provided the legal basis for doing that. That's why Jesus said this, Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. Now that's a verse that all millennialists will appeal to. That happened in AD 30. And I said, yes, it did happen in AD 30. But was Satan still in the world? He's talking about being cast out of the world. The legal basis for Satan being cast out of the world happened at the cross. In fact, everything, the legal basis for everything that's going to happen in the next several thousand years happened at the cross. When he said it is finished, Satan was finished. The judgment of this world was guaranteed. But there was a literal binding in 8070 that was prophesied to take place in 8070. Until that time Satan was going about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Now let me deal with the prophecy in Isaiah 27. Beal points out that whatever chapter 19 is talking about, it is tightly connected to Revelation 20's binding by Isaiah 24 and Isaiah 27. Isaiah 24 verses 21 through 23 speaks of the same war that chapter 19 was talking about, followed by some being bound in the abyss. But if you turn to Isaiah 26, and 27, I want to remind you of a passage that we went through before. And we're going to begin in Isaiah 26, just to get the context. Now we saw that Hebrews 10 quotes Isaiah 26, verse 20 as being Jesus speaking to the remnant church in the first century. So we got an inspired interpretation. So if verse 20 is Christ's voice speaking, then verse 19 is also Christ's voice speaking. Look at verse 19. Your dead shall live, together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. That is a reference to the resurrection of Jesus and a tiny firstfruits of the first resurrection. Then verses 20 through 21 is Jesus calling his people to flee from Jerusalem until the war is over. They did exactly that. They fled to Pella. They were protected there through the duration. Then chapter 27 verse 1 speaks of the binding of Satan in AD 70 at the end of that period. It says, in that day, the Lord with his severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, Leviathan, that twisted serpent, and he will slay the reptile that is in the sea. So this is the end of Satan's activities on earth. Now as other passages in Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel point out, it's not the end of other demons, but it is the time when the strong man is bound. Now let's go back to Revelation 20, and let's look at the thousand years of Revelation 20. If the binding happened in 8070, which I believe the text absolutely demands, and there are other texts like Daniel that absolutely demand it as well, here's the question. Was Satan unleashed in 1070, or 1,000 years later? You know, is it a literal thousand years? And you obviously by now know that my answer is absolutely not. And let's look at the interpretive options. Full Preterists are forced to take the 1,000 years as a reference to the 40 years between 8030 and 8070. They have no choice but to do that. But there are several problems with that view, and the first problem is that this would mean Satan was bound between 8030 and 8070, something that is denied over and over again in the New Testament. Contradicted. Let me give you a few of the examples. Acts 5.3 says that Satan filled Ananias' heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Obviously Satan is around. Acts 26.18 gives Paul's commission as turning people from the power of Satan to God. So he still has power even though it's limited. Romans 16.20 tells the Roman Christians that the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. Hadn't happened yet. Okay. Not an 80-55. would happen shortly. Church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5.5 involved delivering a person over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 1 Corinthians 7.5 tells the Corinthians that Satan was still able to tempt them. 2 Corinthians 2.11 says that Satan could take advantage of them. Chapter 11, verse 14 says Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. He even comes into churches. 2 Corinthians 12.7 says that a messenger of Satan came to Buffet Paul. How could he do that if he's bound? Even Paul gets buffeted by Satan? Yes, that's what it says. 1 Thessalonians 2.18 says that Satan hindered Paul's team. 1 Peter 5.8 written in AD 65 says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Now they may respond that he's only bound in respect to deceiving the nations. Now, we've already dealt with that and shown that it's really not an adequate explanation, but let's deal with that argument again and just apply it to full preterism. Were the nations of the Roman empires still deceived in 80, 30 to 70? I think we'd have to say, yes, absolutely they were. The majority text of verse two says that the whole inhabited earth, that's a reference to the empire of Rome, The whole inhabited earth was deceived. And 1 John 5, 19 affirms the same thing. It says the whole world lies, present tense, under the sway of the wicked one. That does not sound at all to me like Satan's been hindered from deceiving the nations. Now, some have responded that Satan was bound in respect to believers, cannot touch believers. And I've already pointed out, there's no contrast there. That does not make sense. Even for Job, he was restrained. There's something additional going on. But there is an even more devastating problem with full preterism in chapter 20. Duncan McKenzie, who is mostly preterist on this book, can't go full preterist for the following reason. He says, full preterists attempt to separate the millennium, which they see as beginning around 8030 to shortly before 8070, from the saints' full possession of the kingdom, which they have to admit started at A.D. 70, compare Daniel 7, 21 through 22. They have to separate the two because if a full Preterist acknowledges an A.D. 70 beginning to the millennium, he's violating the basic premise of their paradigm of all prophecy being fulfilled by A.D. 70. For example, look at Revelation 20, 7 through 10. And there are other problems, including the inability to reconcile with 1 Corinthians 15. Now at the other end of the spectrum is a view held to by some premillennialists, believe it or not, and some postmillennialists. A very odd, odd view, but it claims to be following Daniel and making a day for a year kind of a substitution. So since there's 365 days in a year, That would represent 365 years times 1,000 makes 365,000 years from Christ's first coming to His second coming. They try to buttress that by first appealing to 2 Peter 3.8, which explains why the second coming is being delayed. And it is being delayed. They say, but beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years. So 1,000 years is made up of 1,365 day years, right? So that's 365,000 years. And then they further buttress it by quoting from some early Jewish rabbis that weren't even interpreting Revelation. And they just say, these rabbis taught that the Messiah's kingdom would be 365,000 years long, 1,000 years for each day of the year. So they claim their exegesis is consistent with the earliest interpretations. Now all I can say about that is I'm extremely skeptical because it does not at all seem to flow from Old Testament symbology to me. Maybe they're right, and I don't know how to disprove it, but it does not seem that that's likely. But most premillennialists and many historic postmillennialists insist this has to refer to a future period of bliss that lasts exactly 1,000 years. Now, I was inclined to this view, even when I was a postmillennialist, because I tend to look at everything in this book rather literally. You've seen that be the case. But there were two things that changed my view, and I've already mentioned the first thing that changed my view is the structure of this book absolutely forced the thousand years to begin in AD 70, no matter what problems that raises. The second was the realization that the Old Testament never once used the number 1,000 in connection with the kingdom in a literal way. Not once. And I'll get to that in a bit. But I'm sympathetic to that view. John MacArthur seeks to prove that this is literal in this way. He says, the length of the period for which Satan will be bound is defined as a thousand years, the first of six precise and important references to the duration of the millennium. And he discusses why John would not have repeated this six times if he did not intend you to take this as a literal reference to time. Well, the problem with that logic is that Jesus is called the Lamb 28 times. You know, 28 times does not make a symbol into a non-symbol. I'm open to it being literal if it could be squared with the rest of this chapter. And one way that people have tried to square it with the rest of the chapter is they said, okay, yes, this is describing first century events, including the resurrection, verses 4 through 6. That all happened before the thousand years, but not immediately before. 1,000 years way off here. And I used to hold to that, but I tell you, it puts a gap between chapter 19 and chapter 20 that is way too big and vast for me to jump over. So I just no longer can hold to that at all. I don't buy it. The biggest problem I have with the Futurist interpretation is that it puts a huge gap between these chapters. and the first resurrection, and both Daniel 12, Zechariah 14 clearly connect the resurrection with the events of chapter 19. They have to go together. So we've looked at the full Preterist view that a thousand years equals forty years. We've looked at the minority premill and postmill view that it equals 365,000 years. We've looked at the majority premill and many postmill view that it's a future 1,000 years. The fourth view is the majority amillennialist view that starts the millennium in 8030 and has it go to the end of time. Now, there's much to commend this view. This view that was started by Augustine or Augustine, however you pronounce his name, But the problem I have with it is it puts chapter 19 through 20 out of sequence as well. They see chapter 19 again as occurring at the end of history, whereas chapter 20 recapitulates back to A.D. 30. But then I fail to see how the last verses of chapter 19 form any introduction to this section whatsoever as the inspired structure mandates that they do. Now my view is that Satan was vigorously at work on earth all the way up to 80, 70. He was probably even preparing people to replace him once he knew he was going to be bound because he wanted his hateful program to continue on. So it's still appropriate to speak of Satan's kingdom since his officers continue to do his work. They represent Satan. So I still speak of Satan when I refer to his demons. But in 8070, Satan himself was imprisoned in the abyss. So the millennium starts in 8070, continues to the end of history, and I'll explain why I do not believe this possibly could be literal, why I've completely ruled that out in my mind. And the first, obviously, is structure. But second, there are other numbers in Revelation that even dispensationalists take as symbolic numbers, and I've given you some examples of sevens and tens that are symbolic. But we'll look at the seven number. Most if not all of the times that the word seven occurs in Revelation is probably symbolic rather than literal. For example, when the Bible speaks of the seven spirits of God, it is not denying the Trinity. It is simply saying that the Spirit of God is perfect, and it mentions the seven spirits of God a number of times. You can read the commentaries of the most literal of the literalists, premills, dispensationalists. They all say, oh no, no, no, this is just a symbol. They have to. They recognize that this is the way the Bible uses the number seven. Third, the immediate context has symbols. Satan is not literally a dragon. He's not literally a serpent. Those are symbols to a literal figure in history, just like I believe the phrase a thousand years is a symbol pointing to an actual period in history. Remember that Revelation 1.1 says that yes, there are symbols, but that doesn't do away with literal history that's behind the symbols. And if the Old Testament did not clearly use that phrase, you know, 1,000, as a symbol like it does 3, 7, and 10, then I would be forced to take it at face value. But because the numbers 3, 7, 10, and 1,000 are common symbols, we have to evaluate based on context whether their use is literal or symbolic. So what does 1,000 symbolize in the Old Testament? Well, I've got quite a number of dispensationalist books, having grown up in that whole atmosphere. And even the dispensationalist books admit that the number 1,000 in the Old Testament is a symbol for the full number of something. And it's actually almost impossible to avoid that conclusion if you study the Old Testament very much. Books on symbology give numerous examples of how 1,000 with reference to people, places, and things is symbolic. And then with reference to time, here's what one author said and correctly said. In the Old Testament, the term thousand, when in reference to time, is always used symbolically. And I've studied and studied, there are no exceptions in the Old Testament whatsoever, no exceptions. Understanding that was huge for me. Now let's test that theory out by looking at some of the Old Testament verses that I've listed for you that connect a thousand together with time. I think it'd be hard to find a more literal book than Deuteronomy. And yet Deuteronomy 7 verse 9 says, therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Now dispensational commentaries will say, well that's not literal. Yes, yes, I know that 40, a generation is 40 years and a thousand generations would literally be 40,000 years, but it can't be literal here. And you can see why, because we're at around the 6,000-year mark, and they believe the millennium is about to start, and there won't be 40,000 years of history. And so they say it can't be literal. Now, I happen to agree with them, but they're not consistent in their application. But in any case, when used in the Old Testament, it's usually a reference to the full number of anything. First Chronicles. It's another very literal book. It's a history book after all, right? So you would expect it's going to be using numbers in a very literal way. Well, mostly it does, but not when it comes to the symbolic numbers. In reference to time, 1 Chronicles 16, 13 uses forever as a synonymous parallel with thousand generations. It says, Remember His covenant forever, the words which He commanded for a thousand generations. So God does not let generation 1001 off the hook with a responsibility to His Word. Likewise, Psalm 105, verse 8 says, He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations. Same idea. Now I checked out every one of my commentaries, not a single commentary says the Abrahamic covenant ends after 40,000 years. They recognize that in terms of Hebrew parallelism, The Hebrew word olam in the first parallel phrase is a synonym for a thousand generations in the second phrase. Now, here's how the dictionary defines olam. Though olam is used more than 300 times to indicate indefinite continuance into the very distant future, The meaning of the word is not confined to the future. There are at least 20 instances where it clearly refers to the past. Such usages generally point to something that seems long ago, but rarely, if ever, refer to a timeless past. In other words, it does not mean forever or eternity in any of the passages that I have just read. It refers to a long, indefinite period of history. So that verse defines a thousand years in exactly the same way that all mills and postmills define it in the book of Revelation. And what I find interesting is premills are very quick to agree. Yeah, in the Old Testament, it's symbolic. They agree. It's a parallel to olam. But when they get to Revelation 20, they insist it must be literal. And I say, why? Why? Revelation is absolutely immersed in Old Testament symbolism. Read their commentaries on Psalm 50, verse 10, and you will see that they all interpret the word a thousand symbolically. Even the dispensationalists do. God says, for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. Does that mean God only owns 1,000 hills, but the 23,400,242 remaining hills belong to somebody else? No. Everybody recognizes it means the full number of hills that are out there. They all agree with that. Now, I'm not going to bore you with more examples, but the point is, whenever common symbolic numbers of the Old Testament come up, we need to ask, is this being used symbolically or literally in this passage? It could go either way. And the intellectually honest premillennial commentators like Mounce agree. He says, nothing in the immediate context favors either interpretation. It is the larger concern to find a consistent millennial position that leads exegetes to commit themselves on the meaning of the thousand years. And that's precisely what I have done. Numerous details of structure and exegesis have forced me to conclude He is using a thousand in exactly the same way that the Old Testament used it, as the full number of years until God ordains for Jesus to come back. So it is a synonym for the Hebrew olam. But actually, there's a little bit more to that, because the number 10 also means the fullness or the completion. And so what's the difference between the symbolism of 10 and 1,000? Well, I would say that the answer is that 1,000 is 10 amplified. We're not just looking for fullness or completion. It's the perfection of fullness or completion of God's purposes. It is a trinity of tens. 10 times 10 times 10 equals 1,000 and points to the perfection of time when all things have been placed under Christ's feet. So it is actually, in context, a beautiful symbol. And it ties in with the results of the binding that are mentioned in our text. Now, the majority text of verse 2 says that in AD 66, when the book was being written, Satan was currently deceiving the whole inhabited earth. The New King James doesn't have that phrase, but the majority of Greek manuscripts do, and certainly the ecclesiastical text does. And then verse 3 gives the reversal. It says, he's imprisoned with this result so that he should not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Now just consider that phrase there. In 8066, There were many Roman Christians who had become, I mean, Roman Gentiles who had become Christians. But verse two says that the entire Roman Empire was still deceived. So He can't be talking about individuals being deceived or individuals being converted. He's talking about nations being deceived and nations being converted. That's why later in chapter 20, 21 we've got a converted earth. The lack of deceiving in verse 3 must be interpreted in context to the deceiving contrast to the deceiving of the entire empire in verse 2, and only the postmillennial interpretation does justice to that. AD 70 and following begins the fulfillment of the Great Commission where nations, as nations, get converted, get discipled, are baptized as nations, and And I think it was mandated by the Great Commission. It predicts the progress of the gospel will eventually be so glorious that all of the Old Testament prophecies of nations beating swords into plowshares. In other words, they're not going to go to war anymore. And peace and prosperity and knowledgeable application of the Word of God and Christianization of the world being so pervasive on the planet that not one square inch of planet is not being lived to God's glory. That's all going to happen. See, this is borrowing from all of these concepts from the Old Testament. Just as pervasively as Satan and his demons had deceived the whole inhabited earth prior to A.D. 70, kept them in bondage, that's verse 2, to the same degree the deception will be removed and the true knowledge of God will happen over the course of Christ's kingdom. The undeception will be just as universal. And so the majority text, I think, is particularly clear about the conversion of the nations. He's going to mention it later, but I just want to point out, it's right here in these words. Now, our discussion of the loosing of Satan for a short time, the deceiving of nations, that's going to have to wait for our discussion of verses 7 through 10. But I'll give you a sneak peek of where we're going. It won't be a deception of nations that are already living on the earth when Christ comes back. I don't believe that at all. That's a common error of both Postmills and Aumills. It will be the deception of the nations that are resurrected on that last day of history. On one day, the abyss will be emptied of trillions of demons and of humans, that have gone there, and after that resurrection, Satan will seek to deceive the newly elected nations that they have one last chance for freedom. He'll convince them to fight against God and against the church with all of their might on the last day of history in their glorified bodies. They're going to be making a mad dash at God's people, but God will then intervene, prevent anything from happening, and judge the sheep and the goats. Okay, now, if all of that is true, what difference does it make? I've already given some hints of differences that it should make in our lives, but let me give you three more practical applications. First, it means that Christ is not coming back for a long time. That should be pretty obvious. The doctrine of the imminence of Christ is a blatantly false doctrine. It has never been the test of orthodoxy. In fact, liberals have used that over and over to club us over the head with. They see these futurists using these, you know, Christ is about to do this, about to do that. And they say, well, it's 2,000 years later. Obviously, Scripture has failed. And we say, no. Every one of those passages that were imminent has been fulfilled to a T, just as prophesied. And so the first application is that we must not expect Christ to come back soon. His appearing in judgment Only in the skies, His appearing was soon, but His second coming to the earth is consistently said to be after a long time, after the Olam, okay? When the church is convinced of that fact, it will stop engaging in the failed short-term strategies that the church seems to be addicted to, and it'll start planning and working for the long haul. In fact, Rodney's introduction to this whole service, I think, just beautifully dovetails with what I'm gonna say here. We're going to start building buildings that will last, solid foundations that will last. We must have multi-generational plans. In fact, it's one of the reasons for the upcoming conference on covenant succession. I can't take the time to apply this really broadly, but just think of economics alone. If instead of saving up for your retirement, that's only thinking of one generation, you instead think of, how do I maximize my resources and pass them on to multiple generations so that they can leverage this money for the influence of God's kingdom? Our great, great, great grandchildren will have billions of dollars to leverage at their disposal and to accomplish incredible things upon planet Earth. Again, we can't just be thinking in terms of one generation. and short-term strategies, we need to be driven by our eschatology. Second, if what I have said is true, and I believe it is, it means that our work on evangelism is not yet finished, not by a long shot. We should not be satisfied with millions or even billions of individual conversions to Christ We should make sure that those billions are so thoroughly discipled and living out the Bible that the entire nations themselves are transformed. We should work to make sure every demon is flushed from the earth. We must work till the deception is removed from the nations. According to the Old Testament, there will be no more nations that will be deceived. None. There will be no United Nations to be pestering us with. To me, that will be a hallelujah moment when that organization gets knocked down. There will be no need for a military. We need a military now. Trevor, if he lived a few thousand years from now, he's probably going to be out of a job, and he's going to be praising the Lord for that. He's going to have a much better job. Well, he won't be around then. But you get the point. Our biggest budget item is going to change. We must seek for a Christianized world. Third, our work of dominion has only just begun. Now, I've mentioned many times we're just in the infancy of applying the Bible to every area of life, but I think we're just in the infancy of beginning our dominion. Now, someone told me the other day that they read an essay that said that we will never again have the degree of technological breakthroughs that we saw in the last century. And I'm thinking, no, no, absolutely not. In fact, the Scripture itself indicates Moore's Law is probably not going to be stopping anytime soon. We're going to be seeing technological advances and breakthroughs that are going to be staggering to the mind. Now, I'm not going to deal this morning with some of the hints in the Bible of these technological breakthroughs. But let me just mention one big picture item, our work on cosmology and the way that the universe works. My uncle Mark has shown me books that I've read through on a new Christian cosmology that may well herald another paradigm shift from Einsteinian physics to something more biblical. And the Christian who is writing this stuff is an absolute genius. And it's coming just as the pagan paradigm is beginning to collapse. Now, if you want something that will blow your mind on the weakness of the pagan paradigm, watch The Principle at theprinciplemovie.com. It demonstrates that modern cosmology right now is in a mess. It's in a crisis. It is crumbling. And it's crumbling. This movie shows from the pagans' own mouths, the best of the experts' own mouths, how they don't know how to retrieve the mess of cosmology is in. But there needs to be something biblical to replace it. In any case, the Bible has numerous hints that our dominion is going to keep going on for a long time. And again, we should approach it with a long-term perspective. Amen. Father, we thank You for the promises of Your Word. Some of them are so mind-blowing that it is a real struggle to believe these things. And yet, Father, we believe that Your Word is truth. And it is the standard by which all other truth claims must be judged. And we believe, Father, that of the increase of Christ's kingdom and of peace, there will be no end. And so we come to You and say, take us, Lord, use us. However faltering, however weak our contributions may be, we want our contributions to be added to the extension of your kingdom. So bless this, your congregation, as we join arms together and seek to advance your kingdom. Bless the upcoming conference, Father. May it stir a fire within us to have long-term plans and not just short-term plans. We ask this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.