REVELATION SIMPLIFIED
CHAPTER 20.7
Gleanings from the Book of Revelation:
A Weekly Verse-by-Verse Bible Study Series
The
REVELATION TO JOHN
Chapter Twenty
The Millennium
Preamble
John the Revelator documents the rapidly approaching ultimate finality of human history. Not everyone dies after the Tribulation Period has ceased. Even a remnant remains after judgment. However, apart from resurrected believers having glorified bodies, everyone else who enters the Kingdom Age alive is a believer.
In God’s predetermined plan, the Millennium will serve as a time of testing man under ideal conditions. In a theocratic system of government, Christ and His saints will rule with a rod of iron (cf. Revelation 2:27; 19:15). No other details are given regarding Christ’s reign on earth except it is a period of great blessings.
Some main characteristics of Kingdom life include:
1. A time of universal truth
2. A time of health and prosperity
3. A time of peace and tranquility
4. A time of joy and happiness
5. A time of perfect government
6. A time of plenty
7. A time of sinless perfection
Conditions will exist as were in the days of Adam and Eve before the curse. Even the animal kingdom will co-exist peacefully.
1. The Removal of Satan (Vv. 1-3)
2. The Reign of Christ and the Saints (v. 4)
3. The Resurrection of the Saints to Life (Vv. 5-6)
4. The Return of Satan (Vv. 7-10)
(Verse 7)
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.
The Second Coming of Satan
As was predicted in Verse 3, when the 1,000 years expire (brought to the goal, finished or fulfilled), Satan shall be set free from the Bottomless Pit (the Abyss) At this point, the devil will begin where he left off, i.e., re-establish his kingdom and assemble the nations for a final attack against God and His saints.
5. The Revolt: The Battle of Gog and Magog
(Verse 8)
And [Satan] shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
The Last Rebellion against God
The Deception of the Nations
God will permit Satan to deceive the nations from the four regions of the globe. Even at the end of a perfect society, people will be deceived and not place their faith in Jesus Christ as Satan plunges into a campaign to deceive the entire earth.
Question: How is this possible?
Answer: Believers who sit on thrones have glorified bodies and are not able to bear children. On the other hand, as survivors of Tribulation having natural bodies enter the Kingdom, they will procreate the earth as in the days of Eden after the fall. Even though their parents living in a theocratic state are believers in Jesus Christ, the children born to them, grow and live long lives but still have a fallen sinful nature.
However, God will not compel anyone in their natural bodies to pledge allegiance to His Son. Millennials will exercise their free will as did Adam and Eve and must make a personal decision to accept or reject Christ for their salvation.
Yet after a thousand years and living in a pristine society, the heart of man is incurably evil and depraved informs the Bible:
Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
John 3:19 - And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
So by man’s nature in a fallen state, he will be easily deceived by the works of the devil.
Satan’s Prior Deceptions
Satan has been using deception throughout Bible history; even before the world was created. Listed are several such cases:
Tactics in the Old Testament
A. Satan as Lucifer deceived one-third of God’s angels to rebel and follow him (cf. Revelation 12:4)
B. Satan deceived the first man and woman to rebel against God (cf. Genesis 3:14-24)
C. Satan deceived the antediluvian world causing God to judge the earth by water (cf. Genesis 6:5-7; 7:17-28)
D. Satan deceived men into building a tower to heaven. As a result, God confused their language (cf. Genesis 11:1-9)
E. Satan deceived the twelve tribes of Israel into idolizing false gods which led them into seventy years of captivity (cf. Jeremiah 25:11; Daniel 9:1-2)
Tactics in the New Testament
F. Satan induced Israel’s spiritual blindness to reject their promised Messiah leading Him to the Cross (cf. John 1:11)
G. Satan deceives the Church by transforming his ministers into ministers of righteousness (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
H. Satan deceives those by signs and wonders into pleasuring in unrighteousness (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
I. Satan deceives many with seducing spirits causing them to leave their faith ( cf. 1 Timothy 4:1-3)
J. Satan deceives people to lust after false doctrines and depart from biblical truth (cf. 2 Timothy 4:2-8)
Likewise, Satan shall deceive many in the Kingdom to follow him into eternal damnation.
Gog and Magog
Along with Gog and Magog, all other nations will assemble to wage war against God. Their number is uncountable which forces John to use the idiomatic expression, “Their number…is as the sand of the sea.”
Gog and Magog are not the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38. Even though they were both enemies against God and of Israel, they are two different battles, and the names are used figuratively to represent the first war at Armageddon. Given is a simple comparison:
A. War Number One: Ezekiel’s battle describes the enemies of God’s armies coming down from the north towards Armageddon and involves only a few nations of the earth. A literal battle is fought (cf. Revelation 16; 19). Also, a great earthquake occurs and mountains are moved along with a plague of hailstones.
B. War Number Two: Revelation’s battle describes the enemies of God’s armies coming toward Jerusalem involving all nations from the four corners of the earth. No literal battle is fought. God supernaturally destroys His enemies with fire from heaven (cf. Revelation 20:9).
Origins of Gog and Magog
Gog, in the book of Ezekiel, is labeled a prophetic prince of the northern empire: Rosh, Meshech, Tubal, and Magog, countries to the north. In Revelation, Gog is considered the leader or king of the Magog power. Many believe Magog was the grandson of Noah (the second son of Japheth) and progenitor of several tribes northward from Israel (cf. Genesis 10:2). They settled in ancient Scythia (modern-day Russia) north of the Caspian and Black Seas.
[Satan] shall go out… to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea
At the end of the Millennium, Israel and its capital city of Jerusalem without walls or gates will be the wealthiest nation on the earth (cf. Ezekiel 38:10-13). Ezekiel records that under the leadership of Gog (the last Czar of Russia) along with the great northern army, allied with all other nations; i.e., Persia, Ethiopia, etc., will gather together for war and be like a cloud to cover the land (cf. Ezekiel 38:8-9, 16). However, the advancement of these global armies descending in a last-ditch all-out effort to plunder and destroy Israel will be in vain.
(Verse 9)
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of Heaven, and devoured them.
The Destruction of Satan’s Armies
After marching the broad expanse of the earth, the hostile hordes of men from the vast army of the world numbering as the sand of the sea surrounded the camp of the saints. The Greek word camp parembolē designates barracks, fortress, or a defensive military encampment in the line of battle outside Jerusalem, the beloved city of God (cf. Psalm 78:68; 87:2).
Even though John notates a battle, no battle ensues. God supernaturally causes fire from heaven to rain down and consume everyone who rebels against Him. The result is victorious and God's enemy is destroyed.
(Verse 10)
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
The Fate of the Devil
At the end of Christ’s victory and as Jesus predicted, Satan and all he deceived were cast into the eternal Lake of Fire and Brimstone which was originally prepared for Satan and his angels since the beginning (cf. Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4, 9: Jude 1:6).
Fire and Brimstone
The torment of unquenchable fire Jesus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others speak of is inextinguishable, continuous, perpetual, and everlasting. The other, brimstone: A mineral when burned always emits an extremely suffocating stench of sulfur dioxide blue-colored gas and liquefies into a hot red sticky substance. Combined, they are metaphorically associated with God’s punishment.
Understand, torment is not annihilation but punishment and eternally being separated from God; for they are spirit beings.
Old Testament Examples
Sending fire down from Heaven to devour men is a familiar tactic God uses for judgment:
Leviticus 10:1-2 – And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
2 Kings 1:10 - And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from Heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from Heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.
Fire along with brimstone was the judgment God chose to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah:
Genesis 19:24-25 – Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of Heaven. And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
So as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, so will it be at the end of the Millennium.
The Eternal Lake of Fire
Included are seven major characteristics of everlasting torment, both mental and physical, in the Lake of Fire:
1. It is a place of destruction (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:19)
2. It is a place of wailing (cf. Matthew 8:12)
3. It is a place of gnashing of teeth (cf. Matthew 13:42)
4. It is a place where the worm never dies (cf. Mark 9:48)
5. It is a place of unquenchable fire (cf. Mark 9:44)
6. It is a place of suffocating brimstone (cf. Revelation 21:8)
7. It is a place of outer darkness (cf. Matthew 8:12)
Where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever
Besides, Satan and his followers will be joined with the beast (Antichrist) and the false prophet who had already been salted in torment since the beginning of the Millennium (cf. Revelation 19:20). As their final punishment, they shall be (third-person plural verb) tormented continuously day and night forever and ever; literally, to the ages of ages –An absolute expression for endlessness.
The topic of the Great White Throne Judgment will be delineated during the next study.
QUESTIONS:
1. What are some characteristics of the Kingdom Age?
2. Who will populate the Kingdom?
3. Why is Satan loosed after 1000 years?
4. Who are Gog and Magog?
5. How does the final battle end?
6. What are some characteristics of the Lake of Fire?
7. Who joins Satan in his final demise?
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