Book of Revelation - Ch. 20, Vs. 1-9 (02/17/2019)

next year. Anyhow, that's what we are.

Okay, Brother David gave me the okay to get started, so I'm going to do that, and maybe we'll get through in time to not run over into his program.

Of course, we won't do that anyhow. We'll be, this morning, beginning with Revelation chapter 20, verse 1.

The Lord has returned. Antichrist and the false prophet have already been cast into the lake of fire.

All sinners have been slain in the battle of Armageddon. Only believers remain alive to enter the

Millennial Kingdom, so the only thing left to be done before the establishment of the kingdom is the removal of Satan and his demons.

Now, the first question I'm going to ask is, is the passage we're about to read to be taken literally?

That is to say, is the Millennial Kingdom real? Is it populated with real people, with real believers who made it through the

Great Tribulation alive? And is it ruled by Jesus and the saints that are already glorified?

And is the binding of Satan a literal event?

I got two words here close together that confused me. Or is it allegorical? Is it literal or is it allegorical?

Now, it's true that the Scripture makes use of all kinds of literary devices, including allegories.

But I believe it's best to take what is written at face value unless we are told otherwise.

And I'm convinced, at least in this case, that this passage is to be taken literally. That there's a real kingdom populated with real people ruled by the real

King Jesus. I'm convinced it's all real.

Before we begin, let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for giving us the Holy Scripture that we may study to know more about you.

Thank you for providing the Holy Spirit to guide us, to take us to the subject you want us to study and to explain away any problems that we might have in understanding.

Because we know that you have given us to understand. Thank you for all that you've done for us.

Thank you for giving us this church, this place of worship. Thank you for everything that you've done for us.

We thank you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. So, verse 1 begins,

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

I saw an angel. Now, an angel is just a messenger. Sometimes an angel means

Jesus. Sometimes it's just a messenger. Sometimes it's an angel.

So, who is it that bound Satan in this passage? Or is it going to bind

Satan in just a second in this passage? Well, not this time.

Jesus can. Jesus is absolutely one who can bind Satan. And normally angels can't bind

Satan. In fact, if you remember, Michael, when he had his dispute with Satan, said he durst not rail against him.

But, in fact, he asked the Lord to rebuke him. I think that was Jude. But here, it might better be asked, who can bind

Satan? Well, we know Jesus can. But this is not Jesus. He is an angel on assignment from God.

And because he's an angel on assignment from God, he is an angel with great authority.

Now, I didn't really answer your question, Virgil, but it's going to come up that we can recognize that this is not

Jesus because of the way he's described. There's other angels like him as we go through the passage.

And there is no other angel like Jesus. So, the angel lay hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till a thousand years should be fulfilled.

And after that, he must be loosed for a little season. Okay, there's no doubt that Satan will be bound, whether it's by Jesus, or whether it's by an angel, or whether it's by a man with great authority.

Whoever binds him, there's no doubt he's bound here. His activity in the world will not merely be restricted, or restrained.

He will be totally curtailed. He will not be permitted to influence the world in any way, not directly, and not indirectly by utilizing his demons, because they, along with Satan, will be bound and removed.

If you'll turn to Isaiah 24, verse 21, you'll get a little passage that maybe will relate to this.

I'm never sure when I go to another reference that this is a direct connection, but Isaiah is talking about the day of the

Lord, and he says, it shall come to pass in that day. Did I give you the chapter and the verse?

24, 21. And it shall come to pass that, in that day, that the

Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high.

Who are the host of the high ones that are on high? Well, Satan is one of the hosts.

He's the leader of the hosts, but there's a host of other... That's right.

So, this is who he's talking about, the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth that are upon the earth.

And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited.

Now, that sounds a little bit like what's going to happen to Satan and the demons during the millennial kingdom, that they'll be bound up, shut away from the earth, unable to influence man at all.

But what's interesting is that Satan and his demons are removed does not mean that people living in the millennium are incapable of sinning.

As amazing as it may seem, a significant portion of the population born to the believers who survived the

Great Tribulation will reject Christ. The believers went through the Great Tribulation, did not deny

Christ, accepted Him, did not bow to the Antichrist, they did not take the mark of the beast, they resisted it all, and they managed to live through, and they went out the other side of the

Great Tribulation into the millennial kingdom, where they'll live maybe a thousand years, but they had children.

And if you think about however many it was that went into the millennial kingdom, and how old a lady has to be before she can have a child, and you're going to live a thousand years, millions and millions of people can be born in that time.

In fact, there's estimates that the number of people that will be alive at the end of the millennial kingdom is equal to or greater than those that are alive now.

Because there'll be a lot of things that they will not deal with that we deal with. I mean, there won't be thousands of people killed in a war in the millennial kingdom.

A thousand years without war, a thousand years without sickness, a thousand years in an environment that's almost perfect.

It will be a huge number of people. Well, you know, it's not a matter,

I don't think, of rebelling against. I think it is in their nature to rebel.

It is in our nature to rebel. That's part of the sin nature. And that's part of the reason that Satan has to be loosened at the end of this thousand years.

We'll get to that in just a second. I'm not sure that it is all of the children that are born.

I'm not sure that it's not. I suspect that there's some children that are born during the millennial kingdom that will survive and will receive the

Lord and will go out the other side. But I don't know.

That's not spoken of very much. I couldn't find any commentators that dealt with the people who were born during the millennial kingdom and did not rebel.

I have no notion of what happened to them. And nobody that I've read even mentioned them.

So maybe there wasn't any. I just don't know. In any case, a significant portion born to the believers who survived the great tribulation will reject

Christ. Even in that perfect environment, many will love and cling to the sin.

And as a result, throughout the millennial kingdom, they will be ruled with a rod of iron.

You see, it's not like it is now where we can kind of get away with stuff because nobody knows.

The king that's ruling knows. He knows what we're up to.

He knows it all. So when it's in our hearts to rebel, he will know it. When we act bad, he'll know it.

When we cause a conflict, he'll know it. And he will punish it, and he'll punish it justly.

In Psalms 2, starting at verse 9, it talks about the role of the

Messiah during the millennial kingdom. We'll bounce back and forth in Psalms 2 as we go forward today.

And this thou that it begins with, thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.

The thou is Jesus. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Now we're not going to go any further with that right now, but consider what is being said.

Jesus is going to be ruling the millennial kingdom for a thousand years. And the kings are being instructed, and the judges of the earth are being instructed.

Serve the Lord with fear and trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.

But blessed are they who put their trust in him. Now before we leave Revelation 3 all together,

I want you to consider this phrase. The very last phrase in the verse.

And after that, he, that's Satan, after he's been confined in the pit and bound and chained for a thousand years, he must be loosed for a little season.

Now for years and years my question was, why? Why did Satan have to be released?

Why couldn't you just go from the millennial kingdom right on into heaven? There's a judgment day up front, yes indeed, between the end of the millennial kingdom and the beginning of heaven and earth.

There's a void of time, and in that time, I got distracted by my own thinking.

For God, there's not a void in time. God is not in time. But Jesus is in the millennial kingdom.

And we are. And we are in time all the way through a good portion of heaven.

I believe there will come a time when we'll be out of time all together. But that's for later on, if we get there today.

So, yes, there is a judgment. But why did Satan have to be loosened for there to be a judgment?

Yes. I think you're exactly, totally right.

I said it a little bit different. I said as a partial answer, let's consider the depravity of man.

We're going to look back at some instances where man shows how depraved he is and the conditions in which he existed when he showed this depravity.

Where's the first instance of the depravity of man? The Garden of Eden.

What was the conditions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? I wouldn't say perfect, but I would say almost perfect.

There's something not perfect about it. There are two things that are not perfect about it. Three things.

Three things. There's Adam, there's Eve, and there's the serpent.

There's those three things that are in the Garden of Eden that are not perfect. Everything else is. In fact, the

Lord, as He created each thing, said it's good. And then at one point He said, and it's very good.

But there's three things that were not perfect. Genesis 3 verse 9.

I'm going to read a little bit and I'm going to make a comment and I'm going to take your comments. And the

Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?

Well, before we go any further, do you think he didn't know? Adam did respond, but he didn't respond the way he probably should have.

He didn't come right there with a full confession. In fact, what he said was,

I was afraid. I don't doubt that. He said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.

And I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?

How did you know? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof

I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? That's his second chance.

And so what did he say? He said, The man said,

The woman that you gave me to be with me, she gave it to me, and I ate.

He had three strikes just on that phrase. And so the

Lord ignores that for just a second. He'll come back to it. And the Lord God said unto the woman,

What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

And there we have it. The first sin in the garden. What was the first sin?

The first sin was eating the apple because they were commanded not to eat it. This is actually the second sin for both of them.

Rather than confessing their sins and asking for forgiveness, both Adam and Eve first attempted to hide it.

And then when they were discovered, they hid in the garden. They put fig leaves on and hid in the garden hoping they could hide from the

Lord. That didn't work. And when they were discovered, they tried blaming someone else.

Adam blamed God and he blamed Eve. The woman whom thou gavest me.

I didn't highlight that, underline that, but I should have. The woman whom thou gavest to me. She gave me the tree and I didn't eat.

What he's saying is, Adam said, The woman made me do it.

After this, I don't know. I suspect that was the first family dispute.

Okay, I like that.

Why do you think he asked Adam three questions, Eve one question, and the serpent no question?

And he gave Adam a chance to confess and repent. He gave

Eve a chance to confess and repent. And to the serpent, the serpent had no chance.

So he didn't ask the serpent anything. He knew the answer to all these questions before he began. These questions were not to solicit information.

There's a lot of times, a lot of times when I'm in my class, I will say,

I'll ask a student a question. And I'll get an answer. I know the answer

I'm going to get. And it's going to be wrong. And it's going to be an attempt to avoid something.

And I will just tell them, don't think that because I asked the question, I don't know the answer.

If I say, who threw the piece of paper? That's not because I want to know who did it.

It's because I want to give you a chance to confess. And if you do, your punishment will be lighter than if you don't.

And I don't know if that's what Jesus, God was doing here, but it may very well have been. I know this, he gave the two of them a chance to repent.

And he did not give the serpent a chance to repent.

So Adam said, the woman made me do it. Eve blamed the serpent. She said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.

She said, remember Flip Wilson? The devil made me do it.

Well that's what Eve said, the devil made me do it.

What did the serpent say? He wasn't asked the question. Now we're going to go to another instance of rebellion.

That was in the Garden of Eden just after the fall. Before the fall and after the fall.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent. They ate of the forbidden fruit.

And the Lord had told them in the day that thou eatest of the fruit thou will surely die. That was the fall.

Now Jesus comes to them after the fall and gives them a chance to confess.

In fact, he actually clothed them with clothing that kind of covered the sin.

In anticipation of what is going to have to happen to us when we confess our sins.

When we confess our sins, John, they don't go away. They're still there.

In the Old Testament, they had to be covered over each year with a new shedding of blood, with a new sacrifice.

In the New Testament, the sins are still there. The sins that we did are still there.

It's just who bears the responsibility now for them. Jesus took on the responsibility to pay for the sins.

And God the Father doesn't even see those sins. So from the perspective of God the

Father, the sin does not exist. Or if it does exist, it is on Jesus Christ.

I guess that's a better way to say it. The sins still exist, but Jesus Christ paid the price for them.

And that's the only way. I got carried away and I lost track of where I am. But that was not,

I guess, a bad place to be. The next instance I wanted to talk about was

Cain. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the

Lord. This is Genesis 4, verse 3. Genesis 4, verse 3. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and his offering he had no respect.

Now, because we went where we went, the answer to this question is pretty obvious.

Why was Abel's gift acceptable and Cain's gift not acceptable?

Was Cain's gift less valuable than Abel's? No, that's not it.

Was it... Well, what was it? He did not do how he was taught to do it.

He wanted to do it the way he wanted to do it, rather than the way God told him to do it. Abel did it the way

God told him to do it. So that's the difference. But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect.

And Cain was very wroth. And his countenance fell. And the

Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? Now, interesting, isn't it?

The Lord asked Adam a question. He asked Eve a question.

He did not ask the serpent a question. And now Cain has killed his brother. That's pretty serious.

So what does the Lord start out by doing? Offering him a chance to repent.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? Why was your gift rejected?

Because you didn't do it as you were required to. And if thou doest not well, then send life at the door.

And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. I worried about that verse a long time.

What is it saying? Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

The first part I didn't have any trouble with. Unto thee shall his desire. The beast that's hiding.

The sin that's lurking. Wants to infect you. That part's not an issue.

The lion, I think it was the lion crouching ready to spring upon Peter.

He desired Peter. He wants to rule your life.

But what does it mean when it says, and thou shalt rule over him? I'm sorry?

You direct the evil that you're about to do, but you also can do something different. You can reject the evil that you're about to do.

You can ask for forgiveness for the evil you're about to do. You cannot do it. You still have some ability.

Does that not make sense? He is going to be held responsible.

Now whether Cain is in heaven or hell. Well, I know the answer to this question.

Whether he is in, I don't know it either. The bosom of Abraham is now gone, isn't it?

If he is with those that are in the bosom of Abraham. He with the rich man who asked for a drop of water on his tongue from Lazarus.

Which group he's in, I don't know. I suspect that he is in the group with the rich man.

But we don't know that he didn't confess. That's the same with Solomon.

There are people that say Solomon was lost.

Or at least he... There are others that say no, he's okay. I don't know. Okay.

And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shall rule over him. You are responsible is the final ultimate sentence on that comment on that verse.

It wasn't personal preference on God's part or disdain for Cain's vocation.

People say, well, you know, Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer.

Shepherds are better than farmers in God's eyes. That's not the problem. The problem is

Cain's rebellion. He was not willing to do things God's way.

And as a result, his desires rather than God controlled his life. God told

Cain that if he chose not to obey his commandments, ever -present sin would be crouched and waiting to pounce like a lion and would fulfill his desires to overpower him.

Now we're going to go a couple of more chapters into Genesis. Genesis 6 verse 5.

And we could do a month on each one of these passages. And I left out some good ones as we reviewed this one last night.

Diane mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah. I said, well,

I probably should have put Sodom and Gomorrah in. But I didn't. This is not Sodom and Gomorrah. This is even worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And it's hard for me to believe this.

Not believe this, but to get my arms around this. And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously.

And it repented to the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him in his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing.

And foul to the earth, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But then, probably one of the most beautiful statements in the

Bible. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now, he didn't earn grace.

You can't earn it. If you could earn it, it would be a wage, it would be a salary.

But he found it. Undeserved merit. He was considered, the

Lord said, I will bear the responsibility for Noah's sin. And I will allow him to take responsibility or take credit for my righteousness.

So he just, in an instant, switched places with Adam. And with some, if not all, of his family.

I'm concerned about that too. But at least Noah found grace in the eyes of the

Lord. That's the only one we know for sure. We know that eight of them came out of the flood alive.

But we don't know that all eight of them found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But we know it. But we don't know it yet.

In every dispensation, man has found himself incapable of obedience.

He was not able to obey when he had one commandment to not eat one fruit in the perfect garden before the fall.

He was incapable of obedience after the fall. The Lord gave them both a chance to repent and confess, and they did neither.

They were incapable of obedience before the flood. And after the flood,

Abraham found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And to him was given the law.

Well, to his offspring was given the law. Before the law and after the law, man was not capable of obedience.

The law was given. Man couldn't follow it. Why was the law given? Not so that man could follow it, but so that they would know that they were incapable of following it.

Rules won't get you there. Through the period of grace, through the entire church age, man is incapable of obedience.

Through the great tribulation, whether you believe the church goes through it or not, through the great tribulation, man was unable to obey.

Even through the millennial kingdom. And it's almost,

I have incomprehensible, but it's almost incomprehensible, that in a perfect kingdom, with a perfect king, without the influence of Satan, nor his demons, that man would rebel.

And yet he does. As long as man's in charge, sin will be present.

So what's God's solution to all this? Satan will be released, and God will then gather those unbelievers.

Well, He will. God will allow Satan to gather those unbelievers for one final, futile rebellion against God.

Now, I didn't call this a war. I just said a rebellion. This is sometimes called the

Battle of Gog and Magog. But it's not much of a battle, as it could not be.

It will quickly and decisively be crushed. Satan will be cast into the lake of fire, where Antichrist and the false prophet are waiting.

And all nations will be summoned for the great white throne judgment. God will then make a permanent end to sin, before establishing a new heaven and a new earth for all believers.

And He will cast all non -believers into the final hell, prepared for the devil and his angels.

That's referred to in Matthew 25, and it's described in terms of a parable.

When the Son of Man shall come in glory, this is Matthew 25, verse 31. When the Son of Man shall come in glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then

He shall sit upon the throne of His glory. And before Him shall be gathered all the nations, and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.

And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand,

Come ye, blessed are my Father, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

That's what's going to happen to the sheep. They're going to inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the earth.

Now, this is not the millennial kingdom. The millennial kingdom is already over.

This is in heaven, I think.

And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given them.

Now, who are they? Who are these thrones, and they that sat upon them, and the judgment was given to them?

Well, I don't know. I probably shouldn't have done that. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their flesh, or on their hands.

And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Now, that's before the establishment of heaven.

That's before heaven came down. That is actually before the battle of Armageddon.

One set of believers that will reign with the Lord through the millennial kingdom is the tribulation saints who have been executed for failing to worship the beast.

The others are all the saints in the Old and New Testament who have been promised that they will reign with Christ.

But the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished.

And this is the first resurrection. The bodies of the unbelievers will not be resurrected at that time.

They'll not be resurrected at the beginning of the tribulation of the millennial kingdom.

They'll be resurrected after the end of the millennium. So there's a period of time where the believers that have been taken out will rule in the millennial kingdom along with Christ.

Now that's over. That period of time is over. The bodies of the unbelievers of all ages will not be rejected until the great white throne judgment.

Now there's two kinds of resurrections talked about all through the scripture. John chapter 5 says it this way, "...and

shall come they who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and they who have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation."

So men will come forward and be judged, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done bad to the resurrection of damnation.

One is before the millennial kingdom and the other is at the end of the millennial kingdom. Kingdom. The first resurrection at the beginning of the

Millennial Kingdom, the second resurrection at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, and these pertain to two different groups of people.

Those that were non -believers and those that were believers. Believers before the Millennial Kingdom, non -believers at the end of it.

Daniel says, and many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

The first kind of resurrection is described as the resurrection of the just.

Those who are Christ at His coming. And it's called sometimes the better resurrection.

It includes the redeemed of the Church Age and of the Tribulation Age. They will enter the

Kingdom with resurrection bodies along with the believers who survived the

Tribulation. So there's all of these in the Millennial Kingdom. Those that were dead and those that survived to go in alive.

So by this time at the end of the Tribulation Period and the beginning of the

Millennial Kingdom, by now, every living, no, every non -living believer will have been resurrected.

And even the ones that are still alive will not suffer the second resurrection.

They will, whether they are given a glorified body,

I don't think they are. I think they could not be. But in any case, we'll get there shortly. The second kind of resurrection then will be the resurrection of the unconverted.

Those who receive their final bodies everlasting bodies, permanent bodies suited for torment in hell.

Now verse 3 kind of clears up a little bit of that. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.

On the second death has no power. On such the second death has no power.

But they will be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired,

Satan shall be loosed of his prison. So for a thousand years, Satan has been bound.

The curse put on the earth as a result of man's sins has been removed. And the government is now being administered by Jesus, the perfectly benevolent monarch.

Now man has always had three enemies. The world, the flesh, and Satan.

For this thousand years that we're running through, two of the three have been removed. Only one is remaining.

That's the flesh. The environment is now a benevolent environment.

Nothing in the environment to influence us to sin. Then we have the binding of Satan.

There's no evil spirits lurking to devour us. As it said in 2

Peter, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

And Peter, he wants to devour you. But man still finds in his heart to sin.

After the environment is perfect, after Satan and his influences are removed, man still is able to find in his heart to sin.

Why? Jeremiah tells us this. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately evil.

Who can know it? Now after a thousand years bound and sealed in the bottomless pit,

Satan will be loosed as a rallying point for the world of rebels, born to the believers who entered the kingdom at the beginning of the millennium.

He is loosened to reveal the character of the Christ -rejecting sinners who are brought into judgment for the last time.

Verse 7, And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth,

Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle. So who went to get them?

Satan went to get them, gathered them up to battle. And how many? The number of whom is as the sands of the sea.

That says it's not a small crowd. Back at the beginning of Psalms 2, you don't have to go there.

The question is, why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings there set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the

Lord, and against His anointed Son. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us.

The context of this passage fits the battle of Armageddon, but it also fits the battle of Gog and Magog at the end.

The battle of Armageddon at the beginning of the millennium kingdom, the battle of Gog and Magog at the end.

But nothing has really changed during that thousand year period. Oh, the environment is perfect, the rule is perfect, but man is not.

Man hasn't changed, Satan hasn't changed, and God hasn't changed. When I said nothing hadn't changed,

I probably should have said, but there are three things that haven't changed at all. Man hasn't changed,

Satan hasn't changed, and God certainly hasn't changed. And when the thousand years are expired,

Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.

Notice how much larger this invasion is than the last one, which came out of the north. This one comes from everywhere.

To gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sands of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed about the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

Now, a couple of things, and then we'll be done for the day. This attack comes not just from the north, as at the end of tribulation, but from the four corners of the world.

The world of the sinners at the end of the thousand year kingdom come to fight the saints at the beloved city.

Psalm says, Be wise, therefore, you kings, be instructed, you judges. Serve the

Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, and we read that before. On this occasion, there is only one weapon used.

Remember in the battle of Armageddon, the weapon was the sword that came from the mouth of the rider of the white horse.

And we referred to that, we interpreted that as the word of God, and they were killed with the word of God.

But then, there were others that were slain, apparently, with swords and other things, because there was blood everywhere.

On this occasion, there's only one weapon used, and that's divine fire.

This is the climax to the last battle with Satan and his armies, whose eternal destiny is set.

And it's followed by the judgment of all the ungodly before the Lord, and the creation of an eternal, sinless state.

I think that's where we need to stop for today, because we're out of time.

I spent too much time rambling around. So, we'll pick up with verse 10 next time.

Any questions? Any comments? Absolutely, and be wise, oh you kings.

Be instructed. They were neither wise nor were they instructed. They didn't change the ways at all.

Anything else? Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all the many gifts that you've given us.

There are too many to name. Everything good that we have comes from you, and everything that comes from you is good.

Sometimes we don't recognize it as good when it comes, but it is always good.

Like a child who doesn't understand how good it is that his parents spank him for going into the road.

He learns not to go there, and so for him that spanking was a good thing, even though it was uncomfortable at the time.

Those things that you bring into our lives, we understand that if we belong to you, they're always for our betterment.

Let us continue to give thanks for all of the good, and to look at what we perceive as bad, to determine whether it's really bad, or whether it's just an instruction for us to do better.

Bless us as we go through the rest of the service today. Keep us and protect us. Put your hedge of protection around us.

We know that Satan will continue to try to influence us, to try to deceive us, but if we stay bonded to you, holding your hand, nothing bad can happen to us.