When Satan's Gone

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Don Filcek; Revelation 20:1-10 When Satan's Gone

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You're listening to the podcast of the Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week,
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Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation.
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Let's listen in. Recast Church, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm glad that you've gathered together this morning to worship
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God on this beautiful, is it still summer morning? I guess kind of, it's beautiful weather out there anyways, regardless, so I hope that you came, that we've all gathered together this morning to ultimately hear from God and hear from his word.
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He wants to speak to us this morning, and he's also eager to receive worship from us this morning, and so that's one of the reasons that we gather together and we sing songs, hear from him, and then get an opportunity as a people gathered together to reflect on him as well.
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And he's ready to transform us as we hear from his word, and then heed that call and go out and walk in the word that we hear together this week.
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One of our core values here at Recast is authenticity. I think most all of you here know that our name is an acronym for our core values.
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It's replicating community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth, but the way that we use the word authentic in our modern
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English language could lead to some misunderstandings about what we mean by that as a core value.
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So when we talk about authenticity, you might have some idea or some notion that when something is authentic, it's the real deal, right?
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Like that's the way that people perceive that, and so sometimes we might think of it in terms of like a bat signed by Miggy, right?
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Like if it's a bat signed by Miggy, you want some kind of certificate of authenticity to tell so you can prove that Miguel Cabrera did indeed use or sign this bat, and so that's what we often think of as authenticity, a certificate of authenticity or something like that.
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But when that concept is applied to a church, it might be misunderstood to mean that we think we're the real deal, like we're authentic and all others are not or something to that effect, and I just want to dispel that often and regularly.
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What we mean by this word is more like as individuals, we want to be honest and true with each other.
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We don't want to be a church where we wear masks and try to cover up what's going on in our hearts and what's going on with us.
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Think of the opposite of authentic as being individually fake, and then you're on the right track to what we're shooting for here as a congregation and as a church.
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Now I spent a lot of time in my younger days in churches where I felt like everyone had it all together.
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Anybody relate to that? Where you've either attended a church or you've been a part of a church where it was like, yeah, everybody's a little bit better than me, everybody's a little bit more religious than me, everybody's a little more spiritual than me, and when you would ask somebody how their week was, the stereotypical answer was always fine, good, or great.
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You know, everybody was living the dream, and it was like, okay, and my mom and stepdad never sat down with me and told me, you know, we never had a talk where they said to me when we go to church, we're going to pretend to have it all together.
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You know, they never said that conversation where they said to me church is not a place to be honest, or let's go to church and practice our acting skills.
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Like that was never a sit -down conversation with my family, but it is something that I felt like I caught over time by watching and observing life at home and life at church, and it's something that some of you in the room can relate to having caught that to some degree in your childhood.
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Now over time I grew to believe that church was not a place to find solutions for my emotional and spiritual problems.
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Instead, I learned to think of church as a place to pretend that I had no problems. That's what we mean by authenticity.
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We do not want to be a church like that. We're going to be a church where even on Sunday morning, now granted, now
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I recognize that Sunday morning is not the place where you just genuinely bear your soul with others.
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You know, we don't have a stand up and share all your crud moment every Sunday morning or something like that. Praise the Lord, right?
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Some of you are like, thank you. But when you have that individual conversation, it is a little bit like putting your, putting a little bit at risk to say, man, it's been a tough week.
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I need you to pray for me. It has been tough. I've lost it with my with my kids. I've kind of, my week, you know, just a flat out saying my week sucked this week.
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I lost my temper with my wife, with my kids. I lost my temper with my boss. I kind of blew it here or there and I really need you to pray for me because I'm not representing
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Christ very well in this context or whatever. So we work through that and we battle through that together and that's what it would mean by authenticity.
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And so this week we come to a text that I think has been so overly explained in a technical sense that the meaning has rarely been addressed and I think that it's going to address something about the authenticity of our hearts and where where we really lie as a human race.
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It's a text that talks about the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ while Satan is locked up. And then it concludes with the final demise of the evil one himself.
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And that is a glorious and beautiful reality that his demise is secured. It's in writing.
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But so many students of this text get caught up in the details, amil, premil, postmil. You've heard, maybe some of you have heard some of those phrases.
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We're going to talk about those here just briefly. But they can get so caught up in the in the details that they miss the point of the text.
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Why doesn't God just judge Satan, lock him up once and for all the first time and just be done with it?
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And we're going to see him lock him up for a period of time, release him, and then finally judge him.
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Why would he do that? Why would he set him free one final time? And I believe that God in his grace wants us to have an authentic view of humanity, of the human race.
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If Satan were removed, you might wonder how good could we be? How much can we really say the devil made me do it?
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Right? And so that question is always lingering and always is a potential question in the back of the human mind.
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And this this period of time, this epic of time is going to address that for us. It's going to identify for us that even if Satan were removed, we would still be a hair's breadth away from rebellion against our creator.
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We need something else. We need a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. So as I read this text this morning, work to follow the flow as I read it and recognize what
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I'm saying about, what it's saying rather, I'm not saying it, but what it is saying about the human heart and rebellion against him.
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So we're going to be in Revelation 20, just the first 10 verses. So Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10.
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If you need a Bible, you don't have one on your lap or a means to navigate to it, Mark's back here, he's got some Bibles. Just do me a favor and raise your hand and he'll bring you a
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Bible. We want everybody to have a copy of God's word on their lap so you can kind of follow along with what I'm reading, see the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.
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So I think, yep, there's there's one right down here too. Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10.
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Please follow along. Remember recast? This is God's very word to us. This is what he desires for us to hear from him.
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It's a pretty cool concept when you think about it. The author of all of creation is going to speak to us through the pages of his word.
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So Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10. Then I, remember this is the Apostle John speaking, then
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I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hands 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.
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After that he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those who to whom the authority to judge was committed.
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Also 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 their hands.
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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.
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This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection.
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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.
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And when the thousand years are ended satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,
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Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea and they march up over the broad plains of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city but fire came down from heaven and consumed them and the devil who had been 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.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Brothers, we've been going through and marching through the book of revelation.
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There is a lot there. There's a lot of symbolism, a lot of things that we have a hard time discerning and figuring out on our own and so we read a text like this and we look at this millennium, this thousand years and there's been a lot of ink spilled over the years trying to figure this out.
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And at the same time there are just a couple of things that we at least know for sure and that is that Christ will indeed establish his kingdom, that he indeed will be the ruler and the king in the end.
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And so father I pray that from a place of rejoicing, a place where our hearts are delighted in you because of what you have done for us, we are worthy of judgment, we are worthy of condemnation, we are worthy of hell itself and yet you have rescued us by the blood of your son
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Jesus. And so I pray that our singing, our praise this morning would flow out of hearts that are redeemed by you.
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Just grateful to our very core that our destiny has been altered from hell to an eternal destiny with Jesus Christ in his kingdom.
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Pray that you would give us wisdom as we seek to understand your word this morning. Again a text that has been misunderstood and misapplied and interpreted so many different ways, but father speak to our hearts in a way that is that impacts our week, not just our theology, not just the way we look at end times, but impacts the way we live from Monday through Saturday of this week and then on through the rest of our lives.
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We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. I just want to encourage you to get comfortable.
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I know that the seats are not the most comfortable that were ever designed by mankind and so you can feel free to get up and stretch out in the back if that seat gets in the way of your being able to pay attention to God's word here.
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And then remember at any time you can get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last up there.
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Restrooms are out the hallway, men's upstairs, turn right, men's upstairs, women's downstairs. So if you need those at any time to take advantage of that.
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But I would encourage you to have your Bibles open to Revelation chapter 20 verses 1 and 10. That's going to be our outline.
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That's what we're digging into. I don't necessarily have a, well I am going to give you just a brief outline here for a second, but it's all centered on the text.
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And our text this morning divides into four primary movements. In verses 1 through 3, we see the incarceration of Satan.
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In verses 4 through 6, second, we see the millennial reign of Christ. 3, we see in verses 7 through 9, the parole of Satan.
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And in verse 10, we see the demise of Satan. So that's going to be our structure. That's where we're going if you're a note taker.
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That's going to be the organization for your notes this morning. In our start of our first section, the incarceration of Satan, it really begins with the vision of the
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Apostle John. Again, remember he's receiving vision after vision, and those visions are not necessarily chronologically future oriented.
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So he's just recording them in the order that they come to him. And so we don't necessarily always see chronology throughout the book of Revelation, but in this case where there's going to be some indications that there is some chronology, that the previous vision in the future is going to happen before this one that we're looking at here today.
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But in our text, he sees a very familiar vision. Many of these visions begin with an angel coming down from heaven, and that's exactly what we see in the text.
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And they begin that way. Many of them begin that way, but each angel has had a different role to play, a different function.
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And this angel carries two things that are going to become significant right away. He carries a key to the bottomless pit, and he carries a great chain.
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And in Greek, that is the translation of mega chain. It's a significant chain, not mega death or anything like that, but mega chain.
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It's a huge, massive chain. The word in Greek wants to emphasize the size of this chain.
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It's going to bind Satan himself, so it's going to have to be a pretty significant chain. But this one angel in our text, right off the bat, arrests the dragon.
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He comes in and says, reads him his Miranda Rites, and it's over. He binds him with the chain. He throws him in the bottomless pit.
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He slams the door shut and seals the doorway to prevent escape. So here in our text, right at the get -go,
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Satan is in the pokey. He's imprisoned. He's in the clink. He's in the slammer. He's in the gray bar hotel. Whatever euphemism you want to use for it.
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Yes, I looked some of those up. Those are all not unique to me, but there's a lot of words that you can apply to the slammer, right?
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This is the place previously referred to in the book of Revelation as the abyss. Some translations will call it the bottomless pit, which is a direct translation of the
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Greek word abyss. Abyss means without bottom. So it's a bottomless pit, and it is a place that we've seen demons confined to.
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Before, we saw an angel go and release demons from that place of confinement for a period of time where they were able to inflict sores and pain on people.
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We saw that earlier in the book of Revelation. So it's a place where demons are indeed confined, only in this case now the prince of demons is locked away.
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And to be clear, who is being locked up? Unless we kind of misunderstand, or we kind of see, okay, you know, who is it that's being locked up?
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Is this just a really powerful demon? Are we sure that it's Satan himself? We find four titles for the evil one in verse two that help us to avoid misidentifying him, to help us to clarify that this is indeed the evil one,
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Satan himself. First, he's titled the dragon. Well, we've seen that that title used for Satan throughout the book of Revelation.
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He's going to be kind of reveal himself as the dragon, and again, that is a metaphor. He's not going to actually come to earth as a big red dragon with with heads and horns and crowns and all of that stuff.
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But it really is a symbol of his evil and terrifying power that will indeed be manifest against the church and against the people of God in the end times.
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So that imagery of a dragon. But he's not just a future, the future dragon who will seek to destroy the people of God in the end, but he's given another title that helps to identify him, and that is that he is also the ancient serpent.
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What could that be about? Any guesses about what we might be thinking of, what might be intended to think about when we think of the ancient serpent?
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Who was it that was there in the garden that tempted Eve with the fruit? It was a serpent.
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And unlike the Antichrist, this is a title that ought to remind us that this is not a human. Not like the false prophet, not like the
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Antichrist who is empowered by Satan, but this is a different order of being altogether. He's been around since before you and I.
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He's been around since before humanity was created. He's an angel by design who in his pride thought himself to be better than the almighty
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God. He's ancient, and he's been deceiving humanity for the entirety of our existence since the fall.
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He's actually pretty powerful. He's beyond actually what we're capable of handling and managing ourselves.
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He's also in our text called the devil and Satan, which I don't know if you've ever thought about the interplay. Why do we have two words for that?
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Well, it's pretty straightforward. They actually mean basically the same thing. One is the Greek word, devil, and the other one is the
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Hebrew word, Satan. And so those are used routinely and interchangeably in scripture, but they basically have the concept of accuser or adversary.
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Think in terms of a court, not necessarily enemy in the line of battle, but enemy in the courtroom, adversary against you, accuser, somebody who has something against you and is going to bring accusation against you.
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He fulfills a legal role of reminding God of the sin of his people, and he delights when glory is stolen from God the almighty in any way, shape, or form.
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He's always pleased when glory is stolen from God. But his incarceration is intentionally powerful in the simplicity of the text.
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Do you see how simple it is here? One angel with a chain binds him and puts him away.
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And I think that's just one more way that we can remember that God is sovereign over all of history. And when it's time to lock
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Satan away, he's going to be locked away. He's not going to be able to resist. He's not going to be able to resist arrest.
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He's not going to run through the neighborhoods, climbing over fences, avoiding the angel, okay? That's not the way that it's going to look.
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He's going to be arrested and confined. I find deep encouragement in this incarceration.
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I don't know about you, but I find encouragement knowing that the enemy of my soul is subject to God and will one day be put away.
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The great dragon, think about the things that scripture says of him, the great dragon who makes the world shake and knocks down the stars, the great dragon who deceives nations, the roaring lion who prowls about the earth, stalking you and I, stalking anyone that might be available to devour.
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And this one, who is spoken of quite intensely in scripture as having significant power, has a date with his demise.
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He's terrifying to me only in the sense that he's a bully much stronger and more powerful than I am.
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You ever thought about that? You actually have an enemy and he's not he's not your equal, he's stronger than you.
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So the only way that I can imagine being comfortable on the playground with a bully of his magnitude is knowing who my friend is, who's your friend, who's with you, who's standing beside you up against this bully, none other than the
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Son of the Almighty Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. His name is Jesus and he has crushed the head of the serpent and now an angel comes and binds the enemy of our soul.
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He'll be locked away for a thousand years, the text tells us, and his deception among the nations will be no more for the duration of his incarceration.
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So for a thousand years he will not be allowed to have influence among the nations. He will not be allowed to influence the people of the earth.
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At this time I think it would be helpful to get some of the technical details. I think a lot of messages on this might be just strictly the technical details.
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I have to go there only in as much as it's going to answer I think some legitimate questions that you might have about this thousand years.
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I think it's beneficial for us to go there. But many scholars have debated three primary issues regarding this one thousand years.
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You're not going to open a commentary on this passage without recognizing that it's disproportionately large.
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I spent a lot of time reading on this text this week because everybody wants to talk about this text. It's one of the most hotly contested texts in the entire book of Revelation which is saying something because probably the top 10 contested texts are in the book of Revelation.
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But the three primary questions are simply this. Is this a literal thousand years? Is it going to be a thousand years?
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Go and then you could mark it by time. And then the second question is when will this thousand years occur?
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Has it happened in the past? Is it happening now? Is it going to happen in the future? When is that thousand years going to happen? Is it literal?
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When is it going to happen? And then what is it like? What's the quality of that thousand years? And these are the three things that are primarily debated by scholars down through the ages.
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The first question really isn't super significant. I don't want to spend a ton of time on it. Is it a literal thousand years? Numbers throughout the book of Revelation are often used in a figurative way.
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Have you identified that as we've been going through? You know it's not always a straight number. You're not always getting exactly what's going on there.
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Seven heads of the dragon. But then we're told that it's something else. It stands for seven rulers or seven kings and different things like that.
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And so you're looking at it and you're going well a lot of times numbers aren't exactly what they seem to appear. So if this number 1 ,000 then follows the regular usage of numbers throughout the book of Revelation it may not be a literal 1 ,000 years or 365 ,250 days.
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You got to get those leap years in there. So you got to get that 250 at the end. But 365 ,250 days.
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Is it literally like that? You know like when it starts and Jesus shows up then you can start the timer and it's a thousand years.
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My conclusion to this is that it matters very little. Strictly because I believe that either way if you're translating it and understanding it to be figurative it's still a long period of time.
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It would be like 10 100s would be the idea behind it and so in light of that it would still be an exorbitant number of years is kind of the gist of it.
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A long long time. Either he means a long time or he means a literal 1 ,000 years. But either way boom they're both a long time.
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And the fact of the matter is it will at least be long enough for a radical repopulation of the globe after the defeat of the enemies of God from the previous chapter that we saw.
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Because we're actually going to see by the end of our text that the false prophet and the antichrist are already condemned to the lake of fire when
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Satan is cast in there. So we know that what took place last week is prior to these events.
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Is that making sense? So the second question is a little bit more important and that is the question when will the dragon be locked away?
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When is that going to occur? And there are three primary variations but two of these views see this as a future event.
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So the majority of scholars see this as something that's going to happen in the future. These are the three views and again you don't need to become extremely well versed in any of these.
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I just point them out so that you can be aware of some of these theological terms. The first is the post -millennial position.
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Post -millennial position believes that Jesus Christ is going to return after a millennium time. It sees the world getting better until we usher in a golden era of peace.
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So this view just straight up sees the world is getting better and better. A little bit harder to hold on to from the standpoint of world events but I would suggest to you that you should never base your theology on what world events.
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Things couldn't possibly ever get better and better so I won't hold to this view. I would encourage you to make sure that whatever view you hold to after I explain these three that you're basing it on God's word and not on just what you see in the newspaper.
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We shouldn't take our theology from the newspaper should we? For just a second there
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I got some blank stares and I was kind of like okay don't. Let me state it a different way. Don't take your theology from the newspaper.
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Post -millennialism is probably the least common of these three beliefs and it just doesn't take into account the many indications in scripture that persecution and the rage of the nations will increase in the later days against the church and against Christ.
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So it's not that I see things around me getting worse and that's why I'm not post -millennial. It's that I see in scripture an indication that things are going to get worse.
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I believe that things are going to get worse only because scripture tells me that. Not because of what I see around me.
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The amillennial position is a very popular very popular theology in West Michigan and probably the average person that you run into that attends a church in West Michigan probably holds to this just because they're so numerous.
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It's because of the influence of the Dutch reformed churches in this community. Influences through any of you ever heard of Calvin College or Hope College?
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Okay both of those schools would hold to an amillennial position and a lot of the churches actually all the churches affiliated with them would hold to this view as well.
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They believe that we currently right now are living in the millennium. There's no literal 1 ,000 year reign of Christ.
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This is the current reign of Christ. But think about what we just read in the text. You would have to believe something about Satan, right?
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What would you have to believe about Satan in order for this to be the the millennium right now? That he's gone.
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He's locked away. He is non -existent. He is completely removed from all of the situations and all of the influence that are the possibilities in the world around us.
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So this view amillennialism would just see it as a metaphor for the church age. There's no literal future reign of Christ on earth.
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I'll have a little bit of a hard time. I'm going to tell you honestly just from my heart for a second. About a year ago
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I audited a theology class up at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. I went into that class. It talked over this subject of end times and I went into that class wanting to be able to come out of that class amillennial.
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And here's why. Amillennialism is a very simple doctrine. It's Jesus comes back, sets up his kingdom, it's over.
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Now how many of you have read the Left Behind series? Pretty complicated compared to that, right?
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Would you agree with me on that? I mean there were how many books? Did they stretch that out to 12? How many did they milk out of that?
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Was it 12? Did they get 12 out of that? That's pretty impressive. Good marketing. It's complex.
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It really is. The view that I believe is true is pretty complicated compared to Jesus returns, sets up his kingdom, judges everybody, and it's all done.
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How many of you like that? I like simplicity. You're kind of a simplicity person. But scripture doesn't always afford us that kind of simplicity in its understanding and what it has to say to us.
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So I actually went to that class and I wanted to walk out amillennial and I came across the passage
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I'm preaching this week. And I studied it and I studied it and I studied it and I couldn't get past it. I believe in premillennialism simply because I read this passage, simply because I studied this and I looked into it.
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I was like I just can't get past this concept of resurrection. Satan gone literally for a thousand years returns again and then leads to one final rebellion and then over.
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So the final position obviously is the premillennial position that was popularized by the Left Behind series. There he is.
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There's Kirk Cameron making his appearance here. I would be in that camp and I believe that there's a literal significant chunk of time in the future in which things will continue to spiral in opposition to God.
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And Jesus will come and defeat the armies of the nations who oppose him. And he will set up an earthly rule centered in Jerusalem.
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And the nations will follow him as the literal ruler of earth for however long that thousand years is.
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If it's a literal or not that doesn't matter so much to me. But it will be a time of partial restoration where the relationships between animals and humanity according to the
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Old Testament prophets it'll be changed that relationship. And there are indications that epic longevity will be restored.
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People will live longer. There will still be death on this earth and at the same time Christ will be the ruler of an earthly kingdom at that point.
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But the final question plays significantly into my belief that this is a future event. That final question, what is the quality of this 1 ,000 years?
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What's it like? And our text addresses that. According to our text that that nature and character of this 1 ,000 years is a complete eradication of any involvement of the evil one.
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The text goes over the top to try to express his incarceration in terms of sealed by the angel of God.
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Unable to have influence. Unable to deceive. It's not like he can get a note out through the bars to somebody to communicate to the nations and still kind of run his little mafia kingdom through you know channels and all of that kind of stuff.
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He doesn't, he's not able to do that at all. No deception to the nations the text indicates. His power to deceive will be completely squelched during this period of time.
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Further the triumph of Jesus over the Antichrist and the false prophet are already shown to have occurred based on verse 10 as I mentioned before.
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And so this indicates that there's some chronology that's going on here. I only bring all of this up to help you understand the controversy of this text but to also see that there are many indicators in the text that this is a future literal time period that is coming in which
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Satan is bound. The world will be under the rule and reign of King Jesus.
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And as our text last week indicated he will rule the nations. There's a prophecy throughout the old testament and even reiterated in the new testament that he will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
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When is that going to happen? Has he ever done that? Not yet but there's a time coming and I believe that's a indication of that fulfilled in the millennial kingdom.
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The second movement of the text is verses four through six and it's the millennial reign of Christ. So what's going on during this time?
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We know Satan is removed and incarcerated but now what's actually going on? In his new kingdom
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Jesus will share his authority to judge and many indications throughout scripture lead me to the conclusion that all believers will be granted authority to judge.
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One example is this text that we find in first Corinthians 6 -2. You see it up there. Or do you not know
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Paul writing to the church in Corinth? They're having all kinds of issues, struggles, strife in their midst. Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world and if the world is judged by you are you incompetent to even try trivial cases in your midst?
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I believe that we who rode in last week victorious with Jesus will sit on thrones.
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Maybe it's a rotation. I don't know. It seems kind of a stretch to think that every one of us will have our own individual you know throne or dais or something like that but I do think that there will be a judgment that goes on and that all of those who are his will be in a in a high standing and have a role to play in judgment during this time.
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But further the indication is given to that those martyrs who way back in chapter six were shouting from beneath the altar of heaven saying, how long until you avenge our blood?
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How long until you avenge us against our enemies and those who fought against us, those who took our very lives?
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And in our text this morning they are brought back to life. They are resurrected.
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And I believe that according to this text that although all of us are raised in this first resurrection, some will sit on thrones to judge but to the martyrs are given a specific role to reign with Jesus.
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In this kingdom all followers of Christ have a significant role to play. This millennial kingdom, it's a kingdom of new life.
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Souls will be reunited with bodies and for this era it will be a unique time of people with resurrection bodies living alongside people who have never died with their regular bodies.
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It will probably be the most unique time of human history and Jesus will be the literal king over all.
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Those who take part in this first resurrection it's declared that they will be blessed. Blessed is another word for happy. They will be very happy to be a part of this first resurrection.
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The second death cannot touch anyone who has been raised to life in this new kingdom. And the one who rejects
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Jesus faces two deaths after one life but the one who submits themselves to the authority of Jesus and accepts his love and forgiveness experiences life, one death, and then eternal life with him.
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So those in with Christ will be priests of God and Jesus it says in the text.
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We'll be like ambassadors to the nations and wherever we go we will be those people who are with the king.
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Imagine what the culture will be like then. I wonder if there won't even be kind of like a word like there's those who have been glorified already that walk among us.
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That's probably a cool thought. But the third movement comes and God lets Satan out on parole and I think many of us might scratch our head on that and go okay if you already had him locked up, why go through the whole thing of setting him free?
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Is he out on good behavior? Did he just pay enough of his sentence? Like why would God release
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Satan? And I think it's a legitimate question. I've never heard a pastor or I've never heard really anybody address the why.
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We get so caught up in the details of this thousand years that everything just stays at the level of technical details and trying to figure it out that I had to really do some research to figure out why would
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God ever release him? In verse three it was stated that he must be released for a little while. Why?
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Are God's hands tied? Why must he? And now in verse seven he is released at the end of a thousand years and that gets down to the core question.
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Why? Many people have jokingly said throughout the ages, throughout human existence that phrase that I mentioned in my introduction, the devil made me do it.
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It really ends up being just a silly little way to divert attention from our minor failures or what we would call little white lies or small sins.
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But this text puts to rest any notion that if we could just come out from under the thumb of the evil one, then we would be good.
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He's the real problem, right? He's the real problem and once we get the tempter out of the way, once we get the accuser out of the way, then we'd be just fine, right?
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I mean can you imagine kind of thinking that way? Kind of assuming that really it's his fault? There's a way of thinking, there's a theological perspective out there that we'll see the devil behind every sin.
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I actually, when I was going through college, I worked at Family Christian Stores and so we would carry all kinds of books and there was one book in particular that we carried, it was called
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Pigs in the Parlor, I don't know if anybody's ever heard of it, but in that book it literally identified like if you're struggling with this sin, then here's the demon you need to fight against and war against in your spiritual life and that certain demons run together.
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So if you've got sloth, you probably also have greed or whatever and so these demons are friends and if you've got this in your life, then you need to make sure you pray against this one too because that one always hangs out with that one and I was like, and you get that where?
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Where does that come from? Because this is a text that's going to actually identify something more significant about our problem, something more significant about who we actually are as a fallen, broken race.
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We don't even need Satan anymore, he got the thing started, he got it rolling, but man we've carried it forward just fine and we will carry forward rebellion even in his absence and be eager for his return so that he can lead us.
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That's what this text is about. How corrupt is a human heart without Christ?
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It's ready for rebellion, it's eager at every turn to be led away from the glory of God, away from the constraint, away from rules and just let me do things my way.
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And Satan is eager to let us do things our way as long as it's not to glorify God, right?
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So the devil made me do it is not gonna fly here because of this text.
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It's the moment that Satan is out on parole, he comes out and deceives the nations one final time and they gather from the four corners of the earth to do what?
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They gather from the four corners of the earth to set to battle against Jesus and they gather like the numbers, their numbers are like the sand of the sea, the text says.
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When Satan comes back, he does not find an absence of people who are willing to rebel against the Almighty. The phrase
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Gog and Magog, do you see that there in the text? That might throw some of us for a loop, look at verse 8 with me and he will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,
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Gog and Magog to gather them for battle, their number is like the sand of the sea and you're like, oh Gog and Magog, got it, right?
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I can totally make those connections. It's kind of confusing for those of us that are either A, not
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Old Testament scholars or B, not ancient Jews. Anybody here an ancient Jew? Okay, probably not, so we're probably not getting the analogy too much.
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We need some explanation, we need to kind of cross a bridge to figure out what in the world is Gog and Magog about.
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Well, in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament is where we find Gog and Magog spoken of regularly.
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Gog was the ruler, he's the dude, Gog is the dude, Magog is his nation, far north of Israel.
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And Ezekiel prophesied that in the future there would come an epic invasion from Magog. They would just come and they would roll through Israel.
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And the insertion of this reminder would have been like inserting the title Red Dawn to me in my childhood.
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Anybody ever watch the movie Red Dawn? Okay, I'm speaking to some of you. So you're getting it. Those of you who know what
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I'm talking about, you remember that movie and you would understand if I were to say there's an invasion coming. You know Red Dawn?
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You'd be like, oh, like where they're at high school and then the paratroopers are coming in and they're like trying to get out with the pickup truck and stuff.
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And you're like, you know, some of you. But there, yeah, there you go. And I think Patrick Swayze might be right in there.
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Look at that. There you go. I don't know if I endorsed that movie 100 percent. Any of you ever do that?
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You mention a movie and then you're like, oh, shoot, I forgot that that was in there. And it's just like, as a pastor,
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I just don't feel super comfortable. But I mean, that's still a good illustration because it's like, it is, it's like what the ancient
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Jew would have heard when they heard Gog and Magog. Invasion. Like, oh, that invasion. That's the invasion you're talking about.
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Whoa, that's coming down right now. Those nations don't only come from Gog and Magog.
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According to the text, sure, Magog has a role to play just in the indication of what is going on here globally, but they come from everywhere.
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They come from all over the world to lay siege to Jerusalem and the encampment of the saints. But as they set the siege,
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I picture a siege. A siege is always a circle, right? So it can't be anything but a ring of fire that comes down on the encampment.
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They set a siege to Jerusalem and all the encampment of God's people. And the indication is that some are actually living outside of the walls.
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I mean, Jesus Christ is the king and people are gathering from all over the globe to set up there and they're outside and they are laid siege and a ring of fire falls from the sky and consumes all of God's enemies.
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Like the sea, like the sand on the seashore, they rise up and battle against the
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Almighty once again. It's over. It's over. I was thinking, and I don't want to be disrespectful, but I was just imagining what is
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Jesus doing when all of this happens? Because before last week, we saw him march out to battle, right? At least he came from heaven and he's got all of his army with him and the battle lines are drawn up and then he speaks and everybody died.
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Remember that, the battle of Armageddon last week? And that set up the millennial reign. And then now he's gone through the millennium and now they're ready to fight him again.
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This time he doesn't even show up. I don't know, is he playing shuffleboard or what he's doing? He's like, oh, I think something's going on out there. Done. Like he doesn't even, he doesn't show up to parley with them.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Those of you who kind of know something about battle or whatever, he doesn't even go out to like kind of make negotiations or anything.
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It's like, it just happens. Fire just consumes them and it's, it's done. Wow. God's power is pretty intense.
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And in the end, the demise of his, of this final opposition to God is much like that first battle that preceded the millennium.
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It's over in an instant. Once again,
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God doesn't hesitate to protect his people. I hope you find encouragement at the ultimate protection of God.
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He will bring his people out of that tribulation. He will raise us all to new life. He will give us all a significant role to play in his earthly kingdom.
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And he will carry us safely to his eternal and perfect kingdom. But not before he deals with our accuser and adversary.
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For real. For real. Not just lock him up in the abyss. Not just, not just throw, put the key and lock it.
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But in verse 10, we get to our final movement here. The demise of Satan himself.
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The final enemy of the people of God is defeated. His eulogy is sure, and as far as eulogies go, eulogy means good word,
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I can't quite, then it doesn't quite apply. But the statement of his demise is just simply this.
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Like the epitaph, if you will. What's going to be on his gravestone, if you will, and it just simply says the adversary who deceived them.
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That's his, that's his title. That's just like, kind of like, what's the best said of him? Or what's, what is actually said and declared of his existence?
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The one who deceived them. The one who deceived the nations. The one who is a deceiver of all. The deceiver, the tricker, the faker, the imposter, is thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, which is another name for hell.
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And he will join the Antichrist and the false prophet who are already there. And lest we actually think, and as, as, as much as I would love to believe that in hell there's an extinguishing, there's an annihilation, that the soul ceases to exist.
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This is just a, an intentional grouping of phrases in the
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Greek that is intentionally demonstrating to us that it is eternal, day in and day out, torment forever.
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And we should never be a people who can think in terms of hell without being moved.
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We shouldn't be able to just contemplate it and consider it and just allow it to be a trivial concept in our hearts.
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I shouldn't be able to mention it up here without some kind of movement in your soul about discomfort with that theology, with that thought.
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People that we know. People that we work with. People that our kids play soccer with.
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People we get together with at family reunions or over the holidays. That without Christ, this is their destiny.
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And we're going to see that next week in, in all of its, all of its fury and wrath and, and just, oh, ugliness.
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What sin has done to us as a human race. And that will be the destiny of Satan, the false prophet, the
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Antichrist, and next week all who oppose the Lord.
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And Satan is not the landlord over hell. Satan will not be like the farsighted cartoons.
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The farsighted cartoons will rot your theology on this one. There's one for you, you know, where Satan is there kind of checking people in to hell.
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Any of you ever read the farsighted cartoons? Is that even familiar to you? Okay, that's a, that's one that I always really liked reading.
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This was always a little bit uncomfortable, but he is not the gatekeeper. He is not there in charge of torturing the condemned with a pitchfork, poking at people.
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He himself is undergoing punishment in hell. The evil one will have his end.
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Satan will not win. He doesn't even give any test to the power of the Almighty.
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I find it interesting that Jesus, again, destroyed the first army in Armageddon with just a word, but he doesn't even have to show up for the second one.
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So how are we to respond to this text about a future incarceration, a future kingdom, a future parole, and the future demise of the evil one?
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You're like, I've had a rough week at work. What's this got to do with that? Right? Or I've got, you know, things going on in my family right now, and it's pretty stressful trying to make ends meet or doing this or working, working 80 hours this week or whatever it might be, and you're just kind of like, okay, well,
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I came to kind of get some thing, and I'm just technically just talking about a thousand year future reign of Jesus.
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Okay, great. It's probably great if you live a thousand years from now or something like that, right?
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Let me suggest three things, three things for us to to carry into our week that I hope will impact you the way that it has me the first is rejoice that Satan is going away.
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Rejoice that Satan is going away. Satan is indeed a terrible enemy. I cannot, I don't think anybody in the room really can discern his work or will in your personal experience.
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I don't think any one of us really knows, okay, what is it that he's actually doing and accomplishing here versus, again,
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I say this often, I have enough ability to tempt myself and entice myself to sin.
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I don't know where the line is between me deceiving myself and Satan deceiving me, right? Like, are you ever like, oh, that's certainly
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Satan right there. I just kind of, I mean, it all gets kind of mixed up in my mind. So it's not always easy to tell, but I do know according to scripture, not necessarily even from my own experience,
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I just know from reading God's word that Satan is indeed at work in this world to mar, to destroy, to kill, and to steal.
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The text says that. He will wage war, fighting tooth and nail against the glory of God.
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He will do all he can to obtain worship for himself from our lives if he can. He's a deceiver, and his plan is to do whatever he can to trick us away from the
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Almighty, and his plan will fail.
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Rejoice that our enemy's demise is secured in writing, it's in writing. It's significant enough and sure enough that God said, let me put it down for you so that you can keep going back to it as an ongoing reminder during your week, during your difficulty, during your temptation, during the season of difficulties in your life, you can keep going back and say, his doom is secure.
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It's done, and it's in writing. It's as sure as the words of God, his promises never fail.
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And let that be encouragement to you this week. Second, acknowledge the status of human rebellion, and then therefore rejoice that he is restoring your heart.
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If you're with Jesus Christ, then you're getting a restored heart. But man, know what you've been restored from.
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It's important for us to understand what we've been restored from, the human rebellion with Satan bound and Jesus on the throne.
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Humanity still harbors rebellion. Those who are followers of Christ during that time, they won't rebel, they're secured, but many throughout the world during the millennium will rally around Satan when he returns.
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And that just points out to us the human heart is ripe for deception. We want to think we're better than we are.
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We want to think we're stronger, more intelligent, more worthy of attention than we are. And I want you to think about this for just a second.
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I want you to answer it for real. It's a rhetorical question I want you to answer out loud, but what in your heart is the answer?
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What would Satan need to say to you to capture you with his lies? I would suggest he knows you.
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I would suggest he has a pretty good idea what kind of hooks and handles he can get into you. I think he knows if you struggle with your temper, you're pretty much just an easy -going individual.
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He knows if you struggle with lust or pornography. He knows what kind of things he can deceive you with and make you think, oh, if you just get that, that's going to be the solution.
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That's going to solve my problems. Is it the iPhone 7? Is that going to solve your problems? What is it that you grab ahold of and you go, man, if I just had this, that's just the next thing that's going to really solve my soul issue.
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What kind of lies is Satan using in your life to try to capture you? Because what he wants is he wants you to be ineffective and useless in the kingdom.
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He wants you to be useless in the production of glory to God. Did you know that? That's something he desires of you.
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And what is it that he's trying to foist over on you? What's he trying to give you in the place of God's ultimate glory?
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I'd suggest for everybody in the room it may be something different. There's certainly patterns, there's categories, there's areas of our lives that may be in common, but for each one of us he's got a recipe to feed you.
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It'd be wise for us to be mindful of that and think that through. Those in this room who are with Jesus rejoice that God has given you a new heart, that at its core, at its core those in this room who are with Jesus Christ, at your core you desire to give him the glory.
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It's part of what it means to be a Christian, a Christ one, a Christ follower. You desire for him to get the glory and that leads to the final application.
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Rejoice that the king has included you in his kingdom or hurry up and get under his authority.
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It depends on where you're at this morning. Where are you at in relationship to this king? The kingdom of Jesus on earth begins at the start of the millennium but it transforms into an eternal kingdom after the judgment we're going to see next week and I'm so excited that he has counted me to be one of his servants.
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I would suggest to you it's better to be a garbage collector in his kingdom than a ruler of the nations that is opposed to him.
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If you're in his kingdom through faith in his death on the cross then I'd encourage you this morning during this next song to come to one of the tables, there's four tables set up in the corners of the room and take a cracker to remember his body that was broken for us and take a cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for you and remember the whole point of this at the end of each service is to remember remember that your rebellion cost him dearly but he his love for you is displayed in that place where he died for you.
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If you're not confident that you're in his kingdom I'd encourage you to please skip communion but come and talk to me about how you can be included under his eternal glorious protection.
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At the end of the service I'll be out at the door you can grab me if you want to talk further about that. Don't delay.
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Do not delay to come under his authority and find forgiveness love purpose and hope.
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He offers those to all who run to him for mercy. In the end evil will be cast into eternal torment but all that is attached to Christ will remain and those of you attached to Christ therefore rejoice this week.
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Be glad. Be thankful in a way that is that is bubbling over to those around you.
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There's a there's a couple of different responses right like there's there's the recognition that we've been saved from hell and that's a great and glorious thing there's a recognition that others are going to be condemned to hell that's a terrible downer right but where do those two things meet in the in the the bubble and joy that comes out of us recognizing that we don't know who is and isn't condemned we don't know who is and isn't going to receive and so what do we do we go out with joy as useful tools to our maker to share that glorious hope with others.
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If you've ever had the the gift the glorious graceful gift of God to lead somebody else to Christ it is unlike anything else on the face of the earth.
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You get the opportunity to bring somebody with you and let that overcome your fear let that overcome your your your your your anxiety about breaking a relationship or ruining something here but let let let joy guide you let let the let the exuberance that you experience from recognizing what you've been saved from let that drive you this week.
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The enemy of your soul will be defeated in the end. Let's pray.
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Father I thank you so much for the victory that you've put down in writing for us and we're now kind of scratching the surface of entering into next week judgment and then an explanation of the eternal kingdom that you have for your people that will go on forever and ever and ever.
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And father I pray that you would use us this week in the lives of others around us maybe it's just removing hurdles maybe it's inviting them to church maybe it's taking another step to drive a little bit deeper into a conversation with somebody about you.
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But father however you would use us I pray that we would be about your kingdom work. I believe the only reason you even have us here on this planet is to be about your kingdom and about pointing to you and that each one of us in essence would be an arrow pointing to Christ.
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I pray for that in our work I pray for that in our neighborhoods I pray for that on in in the interactions we have with other kids that are other parents that are parents of kids on our teams and and different things like that father that we would we would just be salt and light to the world around us.
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Thank you that you're remaking your people in our hearts that we do not long for rebellion against you we're disappointed when we rebel against you but we have a heart that is that is increasingly growing in its desire to give you glory.
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I pray for that even now thank you for communion thank you for the death of Jesus Christ that gives us hope and so as we come to this table father if there's anybody here who does not know you
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I pray that you would give them the strength to skip it and to come and talk with me give them boldness if they're unsure about their destiny before you