remaining standing, please, then we'll turn to Revelation chapter 20. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to be in this chapter for quite some time. We're going to be focusing on the first six verses at first, and then onwards. So I am going to simply read verses 1 to 10, the first part of the chapter, since that's what we'll be focusing on for a while. And let's hear God's word the gospel rather, the gospel writer John, now the revelation of Jesus Christ, being given to him. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge were committed. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended, This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out there to seed the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded a camp of the saints in the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." This is the word of God. Please be seated. I would once again urge you to take in hand, since your outline tonight is very brief and more or less just a summary of the kinds of things we'll be talking about tonight. You have room to take notes, but I would especially commend to you the handout I gave to you, especially the top part of it tonight. We've been looking at the bottom part for quite some time. Let's ask God to bless us in wisdom. Lord God, we are dealing with very deep and yet very important truths tonight. Help us, Lord, to understand your word, to listen to it, to obey it and to trust you in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm going to give you a bit of an apology first. And by that, I don't mean telling you something I regret. Rather, in the classic sense of the word apology, it means a defense, a defense of the fact that I am going to be giving you a lot of background information tonight. This is a complicated passage. I will be dealing with several biblical and scriptural aspects of this passage, but a lot of it is background and introduction. And therefore, I would like you to think of this as the first part of a three or four part sermon, if you will. And if you miss the anything, you can go back and listen to it online and so forth. But I want you to understand this is a difficult subject. I know a lot of people don't even like to think about this book because it just blows their minds or it causes so much trouble to imagine that we really are not quite sure what it means. I don't think we should be agnostic about it, but I think we need to recognize how difficult it is. We're going to be there for defining some terms. Yes, we're going to be using some big words and some technical words, and I don't usually like to do that, but I think it's necessary in this case. We are going to be talking about some history of the understanding of this passage. We're not going to be doing so much exegesis as we are background. Some of you may know. that my sermons usually begin with an introduction, and then historical background, and then exegesis. Well, it's as if this is the first part, then, of a four-part sermon in which I'm going to begin by an introduction and some background. And the exegesis largely will be left for the second, third, and fourth parts of this four-part sermon, if you will. Now, I want you to notice that there are some diagrams in dispensational history or practice, there are lots and lots of diagrams. I only have a few. And I hope they're simple for you. And I give you one to consider tonight. Before I do that, I also want you to know that there are many books written about this subject, as you might know. But let me give you what I think are some helpful books. A classic text is a book called More Than Conquerors. It's actually quoting from Romans 8, but it's by William Hendrickson. And it is an explanation of the book of Revelation, together with what we have called progressive parallelism. Once again, I apologize for the big words. But it summarizes a structure that I think has been confirmed over and over again by those who have taken the time to see the structure of this book. I also like a modern book, relatively new and simple, by a man named Michael Wilcock. It is by inner varsity press and it's called, I saw heaven opened. I would make a note of that. If you would, if you want a simpler, more relatively modern treatment, it's probably 30 years old by now, but anyway, you get the point. It's relatively new. Also, Jay Adams has a book, small book called realized millennialism fellow named Bass. A historian has a book entitled backgrounds to dispensationalism. It's quite technical and. scholarly, but it gives you some history. And then the nice big volume by Lorraine Bettner, The Millennium. He happens to be a post-millennial theologian, but I think he explains very well the different millennial views. So this is part one. Consider this to be extended background. First of all, the word millennium. Interestingly enough, the word has come into fore, in the forefront again. as of the year 2000. Some of you are called millennials as a result, and therefore you should know that it means a thousand years. Here's another big word for you. The Kiliasts are those who believe usually in the literal thousand years, but it is actually describing just the term thousand or a thousand years. When we use the term millennium then, We are talking about this thousand years that is described in verse three of our text, Satan is bound for a thousand years for a certain purpose. Now, you probably have heard these terms before. I apologize again, premillennial, postmillennial, and amillennial. This is with respect to the second coming. Those of you who have talked about these terms long enough will abbreviate it and say, I'm pre-mil or I'm post-mil or I'm a-mil and the word mil there stands for millennium. So now we have even more words to throw around. Hopefully we won't confuse each other too much. Now the word a-millennial, since I consider myself largely to be an a-millennial is actually a misnomer. It's given by those opponents to the view saying you really don't believe in a millennium since the word a means without. I like Jay Adams term. when he says realized millennium, that is the millennium, as we'll see, is now between the first and second comings of Christ. Huckema has called it inaugurated millennialism, yet another big word to remember. Once again, I apologize. So the millennium, when is it? It is 1,000 years. We'll talk about what that means in a little while, the course of the next few weeks. What is millennialism? What is, for example, pre-millennialism? This means the coming of Christ is pre-millennial. It is all about, the subject is the coming of Christ. So it's a little confusing when the word pre- means before, and yet the millennium is after the coming of Christ. So that's very confusing. Unless you remember that it's talking about the second coming. The second coming is pre-millennial. That's what it means. That's what it's referring to. And if you believe that, you believe that the coming of Christ will come first and then the millennium. We're talking about the thousand years. We're talking about what I would want to defend as a legitimate biblical point of view, and that is what I might call the historical premillennial position. That is, there are many people in looking at Revelation chapter 20 over the years, including church fathers and the early church and many people over the centuries who have taken this chapter to mean that the coming of Christ is first and then the millennium comes afterwards. We're talking about people like Irenaeus, Bengal, Godet, Ladd, very famous historical premillennial, Alan McRae, Paul Woolley, who taught at Westminster Seminary, many people in the Bible Presbyterian Church, if you know people from that denomination, Faith Seminary in Philadelphia, Carl MacIntyre, you've probably heard of him if you have an interesting character, the early Reformed Presbyterian Church, ES, and the early church before 300 or 400 AD. In other words, there is a version of the historical millennial, premillennial view in which the 1,000 years is not particularly Jewish, in which all saints will be raised, and they're simply going for a natural reading of Revelation 19 to 20, as they say it would be, which basically says that Revelation 20 follows chronologically Revelation 19. Now, I'm going to defend a different position, but I want you to know that historical premillennialism, I think, is an orthodox position, obviously, or I'm going to disagree with many church fathers. For example, Now I'm not going to say that that's true of dispensationalism, but that's for next week. Secondly, there is what's called post-millennialism, and that would mean with regard to the second coming, the second coming of Christ is post or after the millennium. Do you understand how this works now? To say post, I'm meaning the second coming is after the millennium. Now, this is a pretty common view in various circles. Old Princeton, B.B. Warfield, the Puritans, by and large. Now, I'm not talking about modernists. Some humanists have an imitation of this view, which basically says, don't worry about Christ's return. We're living in a golden age now. But post-millennialism, as an orthodox view, I would defend it in this sense, it believes that First is the 1,000 years, and then the second coming. But what they usually mean by the 1,000 years is a virtual triumph of the church in this age. They believe there will be a great apostasy soon before or after. People that have held to this view are many Orthodox people. Machen probably held to this view. Mary, perhaps. Gary North, Greg Bunsen, Rush Dooney, some of these names are familiar to you. Reconstructionists, by and large. If you don't know these terms, Don't worry about it. We'll look it up later. I don't want to get too technical, though it may be too late. All right. Now, with respect to the amillennial position, the position has been labeled by its opponents as amillennial, but basically it should mean realized. That is, now is the thousand years. And that's similar to the postmillennial view in the sense that this is before the second coming, right? There will be a new heavens and a new earth. According to etymology, we are, that is all millennials are, excuse me, post-millennial. But we don't believe in the thousand years being a literal number of calendar years. Now, one of the most famous and earliest amillennialists is a man named Augustine. You may have heard of him. He's fairly famous. Church father. Notice again, he lived somewhere on the three or four hundreds. I forget the exact dates. But he was able to be a millennial and believe in a literal 1,000 years. Why? Because it was less than 1,000 years before Christ was raised from the dead. So he expected, perhaps, along with others, and he's not alone, that the year 1,000 AD might have been the time when Christ returns. The dates are, I think, and I do have them down here, 354 to 430 AD. Now, even some premillennials and most post-millennials might say that this number may be a figurative number. And I want to stress that for you as I show you examples of that elsewhere in scripture. Now, the last view is one I'm not going to particularly defend. It is dispensationalism. I'm going to talk about it a lot next time. Premillennial dispensationalism is, I would argue, not historical except for J.N. Darby beginning the idea in the 1830s. Now many people might be surprised at that, and they say, wait a minute, the dispensational premillennial view is historical. Well, it's not very historical. It may have an origin only in the 1830s, but then again, since then, many people have believed it, particularly since the publishing of the Schofield Reference Bible, and subsequent to that, the revised or the new Schofield reference Bible. We are going to talk about these things in due course, but I also want to show you a few more terms. Once again, I would urge you to be patient. Notice at the top of your sheet, various views of the book of revelation. Now I have to say I'm indebted to Vern Poitras, one of my professors at Westminster seminary, who gave a course on the Book of Revelation when I was there. It was, in addition to Hendrickson's More Than Conquerors, one of the most helpful things I have ever heard. And what he does is something I think we really need to see. And that is, the understanding of the Book of Revelation is so complicated, but different views are held by different people who all are seeking to understand the Bible faithfully. Understand that. We may disagree with our brothers in Christ. We're not saying they're unbelievers. I hope not. We're just saying we understand this book in a different way than some. Let me give you then some emphases in the understanding of the book of Revelation. Perhaps you've heard the term preterist. That's a relatively new term in a sense of people today many times will say, you know, we've forgotten. We've forgotten to emphasize the original context of the book of Revelation. What's the first part of the Book of Revelation all about? The letters to the seven churches. When did those churches exist? Well, back, way back when, very possibly before the destruction of Jerusalem, perhaps not. But either way, we need to reckon with the fact that the Book of Revelation had a lot to say to the early church. And sometimes we have forgotten that. And so I would like to say, that all of us should, in some sense, be preterists. That is, we should understand the first century setting of the book and see many fulfillments in the fall of Jerusalem and in the Roman Empire's conflict with the church. Now, let me also say that you don't want to go too far with this or any of the other views. There is what might be called hyper-preterism, which basically says that Christ has already returned, and that's it. This is all there is. Now, I believe that's not an orthodox position. Hyper-preterism, I do not believe is orthodox. It basically says that Christ has already returned. And in the scripture, Paul argues against such people who say, without evidence, and without a new evidence on a new earth, that Christ has already returned. I believe it's an error. But preterism by itself has, I think, I'm going to call it a helpful tonic for helping us to root the scripture in its original context. The second view is called the historicist view. This is relatively uncommon. It was held in various times in church history, but it sees revelation as a consecutive historical description from the early church through the second coming. Now we're seeing such things as locusts being helicopters and things like that progressively all the way through from the earliest time of the early church, all the way through to the end in consecutive order. I really think that's extremely hard to defend, but it has this one thing that we might learn from it. We are talking about history. We are talking about things that have happened or are happening or will happen historically. Even though we're talking about a book that describes things in apocalyptic symbolic ways, it's still talking about the realities behind the symbolism. I refer you to my prior sermon on the symbols of prophecy. It had to be about six months ago now, still online, showing you how all of this works. The third view is the idealist view. This emphasizes the general principles of opposition from the world, reign of Christ, though it does seem, see specific fulfillments where they may be identified. Now, most people would put the amillennial position in that category. Though I think it's possible to overemphasize this too. We're not talking about just symbols on their own. We're talking about the realities behind the symbols. So idealism is not, as some people would put it, explaining away or spiritualizing the reality of what the Bible is teaching. I want you to notice the diagram underneath these four words. General truth is being taught in the book of Revelation. If we don't understand all the details of the book of Revelation now, it's actually okay. It's really okay. I really appreciate my brother when he said this morning, you know what? I don't know and it's okay. Don't worry about it. There are some things that we will not understand until these prophecies are fulfilled. So the emphasis of idealism is not to explain things away, but to rather see general truth as expressed in the symbol. But as illustrated in the original setting, that's the preterist emphasis. The analogy for things that are happening today, that's the historicist emphasis. And future events, and that's the futurist emphasis. Let me explain that one for you. The futurist places most events described in Revelation in a future millennial age after the second coming or just prior to the second coming. This is where you might find particularly the dispensationalist emphasis. Not to say, however, that there aren't a lot of things that are in the future, particularly Revelation 21 and 22. I don't know how you can doubt that. But there are so many other things that are describing this age's general characteristics that I don't think we can place it entirely in the future. I hope I have been clearer than mud. I know this is difficult stuff, and I am once again hoping that you can think about it if you will. Much symbolism does occur in the book of Revelation. This is one of our, what we call, presuppositions. McCrae has written this statement, how can anyone refuse to accept a thousand years, and he means literal thousand years, when everything in chapter 20 is literal. Now, I want you to think about that for just a minute. Aside from the question of the symbols of prophecy, I want you to have this question in your mind. Are you telling me that there's an actual physical key in the hand of an angel, that this physical key opens up the gate to a bottomless pit, and that an angel, like the devil, can be placed in a pit and locked up with a door that has a key put in it? If you were to examine the chemical composition of this key, what would it be made of? You see what I mean? It gets a little bit, how can I say it? I don't want to be too harsh, but let's just call it, it gets to be a little silly if we don't see these things as innately symbolic of greater realities, greater than what an ordinary key might be made of. Do we believe that this, that Satan is actually a dragon? Do we believe that Satan is actually a physical serpent? Now we know where that comes from. You've got the Garden of Eden and you've got that devil being described as the devil in these kinds of terms. But does that mean he has scales and can breathe physical fire? I don't mean to be too mocking in this matter, but I think we have to ask the questions sincerely. Do we believe in a hole in the ground somewhere? Or do we believe that that abyss stands for something more important, something higher, not less literal, or I should say less real, but something that is bigger than all of that. Another problem, and I call it another presupposition besides the symbolism, is the book of Revelation is repeating truths that are found elsewhere in the scripture. There is an idea, pretty commonly held, that the book of Revelation is about absolutely everything that wasn't told us earlier in the Bible as a whole. Now, I would contest and say things in the Bible as a whole have all mentioned these kinds of things. The book of Revelation is kind of a capstone on the rest of the scripture, I would say, but it is also not brand new. For example, we saw this morning Providentially, this account of this man with an army of demons and Jesus Christ casts out the demons and the demons are put into pigs and the pigs are running into the lake and they are destroyed. And our brother said very properly, this is a picture, a token, a foretaste of what's going to happen later. And therefore Jesus power over the demons is real. In historical terms, we saw an example of it here this morning. Or let us look at Luke chapter 10. And I have several other scriptures now to get you thinking about the scriptures themselves right now and the parallels we see in Revelation chapter 20 and the rest of scripture. Take, for example, Luke chapter 10 and verse 18. This is in the context of the return of the 72 that were sent out two by two to call the cities to repentance, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Not only did Jesus cast out demons, but his disciples, as they went forth, were demonstrating the power of the gospel over actual demons, actual satanic power. And they were surprised. And what did Jesus say? I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. In other words, at the coming of Christ, there is a change in the status of the devil, who heretofore have been able to bring accusations with some credibility against the people of God. If Christ hadn't yet died, you look at Zechariah, for example, is it not possible that the people of God might not have been saved? Well, theoretically, but no. Once Christ came, Satan lost his case. isn't true in any way shape or form that the devil will someday win. The death blow has been struck. Satan's head has been wounded going all the way to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 13. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. There are other places where we find this kind of language, which we'll talk about, of the restriction of the dragon, the ancient serpent, bound for a thousand years. Falling from heaven is a restriction of Satan. Let us look at Revelation chapter 12, however. If you'll follow my outline, you'll see that we have parallel sections, seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven symbolic figures, seven bowls, seven judgments. Notice what's the first chapter of the central section, seven symbolic figures. If you go back all the way to Revelation 12. A great sign had appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet. On her head, a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant, was crying out in birth pains, and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon. His tail swept down a third of the stars, and so forth. But remember that the male child, who we know is Christ, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, who else but the Messiah, the child was caught up to God and to his throne. And I would argue that's looking forward to the ascension of Christ, the power of the right hand of God. Meanwhile, the woman, who symbolizes the church, is brought into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, where she is to be nourished for 1260 days. You remember the symbolic number here, time times an F time. I believe it refers to the first and second coming period in between. Notice that war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And notice that this accuser of God's people in verse 10 has been thrown down. He has been cast down. Notice in verse nine, the same thing. He was thrown to earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Remember what we saw in Luke chapter 10 verse 18. I saw the devil falling down out of heaven. So there's a restriction now. The one who accuses our brothers no longer has his credibility. Now the devil has come down to you in great wrath, but he knows his time is short. I would argue this is the parallel passage to Revelation chapter 20. It's the beginning of a new section. It describes the great struggle. It describes Satan's sure doom, but it does not describe his obliteration. In fact, he will even be released for a time after the thousand years is over. So it is, as we'll see in a couple of weeks from now by exegesis, a restriction of Satan, who is like a roaring lion now seeking whom he may devour. We find this kind of language also in 1 Peter. We look at 1 Peter 5, 8, familiar to you. As I just quoted, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But here's a desperate spirit. The Holy Spirit has already been poured out upon God's people, and now he's looking for the weak and the lame. and those who are not watchful. And then we have 2 Peter 3, verse 8, also a little parallel to our text. I don't want to go overboard on this. I'll show you why in a minute. Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as one day. Now, don't get too picky as to how you apply this passage, because it's speaking in general terms. It's saying, with the Lord, He has much bigger plans than we can time out. It might take quite some time for Christ to return. It is talking about the return of Christ. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise. But what I think is important is this term 1,000 years is used in 2 Peter 3 to mean a big period of time. And the day is used as a small period of time. So what he's saying is a thousand years is a name for a big period of time, even in prosaic terms or non apocalyptic terms. And I think that's where people, some people do get carried away on this point and try to make some mathematical equation from it. I don't think that's the point. What we have here is the fact that elsewhere in scripture, the term a thousand years is used, but I would argue this in the book of revelation. Chapter 20 is the only place where the term a thousand years is used in a prophetic context, that is, apocalyptic literature. This is what makes it so difficult to understand, because we have to say, where are the parallels to all of this? We're going to be talking about dispensationalism next week, but let me just say at least this much, and our time is drawing short here. In a few minutes, we're going to conclude our part of this message. Dispensationalism, in my recent study, is changing. And I would argue that it's changing for the better. And I think the reason for that is more than just the fact that something that talks about change may itself change. I think that's true, but especially if it is untenable. That is, if it doesn't really match scripture very well. And it's relatively new. Dispensationalism is changing. Many of you know about Dallas Theological Seminary, sometimes called Dispensational Theological Seminary, DTS. Dallas Theological Seminary is changing. I read on its website today that no longer are they promoting seven dispensations, or 10, or whatever number somebody might have come up with. They're down to three. Very interesting. Three. Three dispensations. Moses, the gospel, and the millennium. It's getting simpler. They're getting a little closer, I would say, to the biblical simplicity. Have you ever heard of progressive Dispensationalism. Look it up. It basically says that the dispensations are not completely separate. They have connections to them. And one gives way to another. And as Dallas's website points out extremely well, that when we have the idea of faith in Christ being the only way of salvation, no Salvation by works in Moses and salvation by grace in Christ. Dallas Seminary's website says, well, we look at Hebrews chapter 11. What else can we conclude? Everybody is saved by faith. Exactly. Exactly. This is what we've been saying all along. Now, I understand that there are differences in time periods. We talk about a different administration of the covenant of grace. That's the reformed view. The covenant of grace is overarching from Genesis to Revelation, but there are different administrations of this one covenant. Now that's not that different. It's still a little different than saying we have progressive dispensations that are connected to one another. And after all, salvation is still by faith. Guess what? We're all brothers in Christ. You see, we're coming together in understanding this very complicated matter. Well, we have to come together with these great truths. And with this, I will conclude. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming again. All right? Can we agree on that? That the second coming of Christ is still future? I hope we can agree on that. That the Church of Jesus Christ is, and this is a little bit touchier of a point, but the Church of Jesus Christ ultimately is one. That's something we're still working on compared to our dispensationalist brothers. But ultimately, we have one kingdom, a kingdom in which there is no end of Jesus' reign. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Can we agree on that? Of course we can. Don't you see? The most simple, fundamental truths are clear to everybody. So, as we heard this morning, in the things that you're not so sure about yet, I'll echo my brother. Don't worry too much about it, but let's keep working because we could gain additional comfort. We could get additional strength, additional clarity, additional preparation for the kingdom of God as it comes. Understand the gospel ultimately was meant to bring about a single kingdom, which has no end. Why? because there's one King. One God and Father who is over all and in all and through all. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. He binds us together in one. This is the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Aren't you glad? Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for the one Lord of glory. How we praise your name for your wonderful power Oh, it is so difficult. We feel like we're getting lost in the weeds sometimes. But teach us these simple truths, these fundamental truths that all believers everywhere at all ages have believed. Teach us again to rejoice in the Lordship of our Savior, the Lord of glory, crucified, risen, and coming again, we ask in his name alone. Amen.