The one sitting on it was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He’s clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.
And he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Revelation 20. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, 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 1,000 years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, 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. They came to life and reigned with Christ for 1,000 years.
The rest of the dead do not come to life until the 1,000 years were ended. This is a certainty that only a teen could muster. I stated in the mid-’80s that rap music would never take off. Hearing it then for the very first time in western Montana, I was quite certain it was just a passing musical fad.
We are like that when we hear new things. It’s often shocking to us. We’re often dismissive of those ideas. And for some of you this morning, this may be the case as we hit chapter 20. There are some Christian traditions that have made a lot out of the end times, and regardless of whatever the text is being preached, somehow there is always room to include something about the end.
And if you’ve been brought up in circles that are generally called dispensational churches, That was a regular feature. You know names like Hal Lindsey, the Left Behind series. Every rumbling in the Middle East would be seen as some fulfillment of end times prophecy. Lots of failed predictions, but that didn’t stop anyone from guessing the next one. And any view that was contrary to that or support something else was just strongly rejected as unbiblical.
As we go forward, we’re gonna be looking at how Christians have thought of these verses through the ages. And for some, it’s gonna be very familiar. You’re used to these things. And others, this might be the first time you’ve ever heard this. So I would encourage all of us to extend great patience and charity towards one another, particularly for things that again may be brand new to you.
The question, of course, is why is any of this important? It is the case when Christians have been a powerless minority with great imperial powers arrayed against us, it often can seem helpless and hopeless. We wonder if God cares. We wonder if he’s in control or why he’s not doing anything about our current situation. And besides this despondency, there also could be this reaction then of wanting to take matters into our own hands.
We can turn spiritual warfare into physical warfare. But the Lord is bringing human history to its appointed end, and we are to be about his business throughout it in his way. So a quick recap: in chapter 17, 18, into 19, we saw the rise and the fall of the great dragon and the beast. In this very symbolic language, we were given a very descriptive picture of the world’s religious, political, and social structures that are opposed to the Lord. Names like Babylon and descriptions of Roman might were all used to speak of these ever-changing systems that are in constant rebellion against God.
And as we’ve seen through the book, John often describes these events, and I would say, as a cyclical manner. Rather than kind of moving from one event to the next event to the next like that, he takes us to a particular scene and shows us from one vantage point, and then later shows us that same scene from a different one. And that’s why sometimes when you’re reading Revelation, you can kind of go, I thought we just covered that a couple chapters ago. And in chapters 16 and 17 and 19, they’ve described in different ways the final battle. And now we get to chapter 20, final battle, and it is another vantage point of which to view the very same event.
The added feature to this, of course, is the idea of the Millennium. We back up to Revelation 19. John, he saw heaven open, and behold, this white horse and one sitting on it who’s faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, his head on many diadems, and he has his name written that no one knows but himself. It’s a very symbolic picture of Jesus, the great victorious champion, returning.
Back in chapter 5, we saw the Lamb of Judah, and here is the Lion of Judah. The Lamb has given way to the Lion, and his closed robe is dipped in blood. The name by which he is called is the Word of God. Of course, echoes of John’s Gospel speaking of Jesus as the Word made flesh. And he goes on, he says these armies of heaven are with him.
They also are arrayed in white, they’re also on white horses. And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. Again, highly symbolic language. A sword from the mouth, it shows the power of his words of truth going out into the world. And then we get the language from Psalm 2.
He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury, the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh, he has the name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It’s a picture then of the absolute rule and the might of Jesus. And then what comes next is one of complete destruction.
In verses 19 and following, I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. These two beasts were thrown alive into the lake of fire, and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse. For all the images of the final battle that we’ve conjured, and maybe what people have spoken of, Revelation consistently describes these as non-events. They’re pretty anticlimactic because of the power and the might of God. It’s sort of like a handful of chipmunks that have taken on a grizzly.
It’s not really a fight. They’re There’s no question who’s gonna win. And that’s kind of what we see every time we come to these great battle scenes. It’s over as it begins because of the power and the might of the Lord. And then this new vision comes to John.
Again, I, I think it, it’s helpful if we don’t necessarily see these just going in chronological order, but he’s looking at some of these same events from a different vantage point. I had mentioned before that if you’re trying to describe to someone everything that happened on D-Day during World War II. All these things are happening simultaneously, but you have to speak of them sort of one thing at a time. There’s just too many events happening. So I think that’s what you see taking place as well.
In Revelation 20, as we’ve just read, that an angel comes from heaven, he’s holding a key to the, the bottomless pit, the abyss, and he seizes Satan the dragon and he binds him for a thousand years. He’s thrown into the pit. It’s sealed. And it says he must, he must be released for a little while once this 1,000 years has ended. And then I saw a throne seated, and those with authority to judge was committed.
And I saw the souls of those who’d been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image. And they, they came to life, and they reigned with Christ for 1,000 years. And the rest of the dead came to life after the 1,000 years were ended. Thus is the first resurrection. So here we come to this part of Revelation that is understood in very different ways, and it’s sort of interpretive paths are, are taken at this point.
There’s no way you can’t pick a path. There’s been also no consensus on the path that you’re to take. It’s in church history. Some have been understood maybe better through time and have held the day more than others. But there hasn’t been a uniform consensus on how we understand this.
The millennium just simply means a thousand, thousand years. It’s the number like 7, it speaks of perfection. 10 times 10 times 10, that everything that God is doing, all the activity coming to its perfect conclusion. And from this word millennium, we see 3 main views through church history. Some in the early church thought Jesus would return and then God’s people would reign with Christ for a thousand years, and that would be the final judgment afterwards.
The word used for that is called premillennialism.
So Jesus returns and then there’s this millennial that takes place. Whether the thousand years is literal or figurative, it didn’t really matter. They’re just describing the position. In the 17th century, English Puritans had the idea that this millennium, this 1,000 years, was from the time of Jesus’ resurrection to when he would return. And along the way, the gospel would go into the world and it would have increasing victory over the world until Jesus returned.
That view is called postmillennialism. Jesus comes after this time period. And in early American history, this was the predominant view because of English Puritans coming to America, but it’s a small minority today. The third view also came from the early church. It’s been the dominant view through church history and probably describes the majority of PCA ministers.
The idea is that the millennium starts at the time of Jesus and ends at his return, and that would mean the current age that we live in the church age is the millennium, that it’s symbolic for this time period. It’s called amillennialism, the ‘a’ being a negative, like, you know, asymmetrical. That’s the three dominant views, and they all have strengths, they all have weaknesses to them. And that’s sort of been what’s held by most Christians through the ages, with the amillennial view the majority of people, the majority of time. A fourth one I mentioned earlier, it’s called dispensational.
It’s something different than these three altogether. It started in the late 1800s, and it took off largely through what I say is more of a Baptist circle. It sort of takes a pinch and a dash of various parts of Daniel and Ezekiel with some of the New Testament, throws it in within current events, and that’s how you see and interpret everything around you. It’s very detailed, it’s very elaborate, And it will center on the nation of Israel in its system quite frequently. And if you’ve heard a preacher on the radio predicting end times, it’s this position.
So that’s where you would have heard a lot of this, that this is where it comes from. And I would say it’s probably now the dominant view amongst American evangelicals today. So there’s movements through history that these things ebb and flow and they change. And if you are a part of one currently, you don’t maybe recognize that, oh, this is a minority review of what the church hasn’t held to for long periods of time. So just be aware of that.
And that’s why we extend great amounts of charity to one another, whatever system that you come out of. It’s a lot of isms to consider. A few observations. If you take Revelation on its own terms, you will see missing from it entirely is any language of a rapture. Which people take from 1 Thessalonians 4, but it’s not mentioned here.
What you also see virtually absent in any discussion of Israel as a nation— that might surprise you— but John puts the church front and center throughout his conversation. It’s all those Jews and Gentiles who are followers of Jesus. So in the book of Revelation, the church takes primacy. And John is seeing all these events in very symbolic pictures. Jesus, as we’ve already said, is not a 7-eyed, 7-horned lamb.
He does not have a literal sword coming out of his mouth. Satan is not literally a red dragon, and the beasts do not have frog-like spirits coming from them. These all represent spiritual realities, spiritual ideas. So the tying up of Satan with chains and locking him up is a picture that represents his power and his authority being removed from him. The question then is, when did this happen?
In the early church, most thought of it at the Incarnation. One writer put it like this, he said, the psalmist says that a day is a thousand years, as though there’s no distinction with God between one day and a thousand years. It was in this period of the Lord’s Incarnation that the devil was bound. So that he was unable to oppose the Savior’s divine miracles. So that has been a view from the early times going forward of the binding of Satan.
One of the things when you think about that is, is Jesus, when he sent his disciples into the training mission, as it were, two by two, to tell people about the kingdom, when they come back, he said he greatly rejoiced. And he then said, I saw Satan fall like lightning to the earth. And then Jesus also said that it was necessary to bind the strongman before you could plunder his house, speaking of Satan. And then as he contemplated the cross in John 12, he said, now is the judgment of the world, now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And Paul in Colossians 2 said Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame by triumphing over them.
So the idea that it is the time of Christ that changes everything. Because you think about this, before the coming of Jesus, the only nations that knew anything about God in a true way were the Jewish people. They were the only true witness on the earth. The nations were blind across the board. And then when the gospel comes, that light goes into the world and that total darkness begins to be removed.
And it is to this day. So John goes on in verse 7: When the thousand years were ended, Satan will be released from his prison. He will come to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea, and they marched over the broad plain of the earth, surrounded the camp of of the saints, the beloved city. And then again the battle.
But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. Done.
And the devil who had been deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire. And the beast and the false prophets were, and they were tormented day and night forever and ever.
So if you see in the events here in chapter 20 as chronologically happening after chapter 19, Then you’re left with the total destruction of God’s enemies being mentioned, a 1,000-year reign of Jesus with only his people, and then Satan coming back and deceiving the nations. And the question immediately is, what nations? Because in chapter 19, everything was destroyed and done. Everything was over. So that would be the question if it’s chronological.
Where— who are these people? And Gog and Magog are nations spoken about in Ezekiel, and it’s sort of shorthand for those that oppose God’s people. It’d be similar to us speaking of Hitler and Stalin as representatives of the opposition, and that would have been understood in, in Jewish writers. And the reason that we have so many different views is that it’s not altogether clear, again, what’s taking place and when it’s taking place. And that’s why there are very strengths and weaknesses to each position.
I personally think that the amillennial view does the best job of explaining what’s going on But it has its problems too. No view covers the ground entirely. It’s one of these things that we’re gonna know after the fact in totality. But now we just see pictures and glimpses of what’s gonna take place. And we see that constantly with biblical prophecy.
You know biblical prophecy clearly after the fact. Beforehand, you have ideas of what’s taking place. But only later you go, “Oh, that’s what he meant,” and how we put it all together. And so there’s got to be a great deal of charity when it comes to trying to understand these things. And people want to come and say they absolutely, certainly know beyond a doubt what all these things mean.
That has not been so for 2,000 years of God’s people wrestling with these texts, though there are some dominant ideas. And so this moves us then into the final judgment. There’s a final reckoning that takes place. In verse 11, I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. And from his presence, earth and the sky fled away.
Again, these are symbolic language. How does the earth and the sky flee? Just talking about the greatness of the one who sits on the throne. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. The idea of the books of the records of your life.
Then another book was opened, which was the Book of Life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up its dead. Death and Hades give up their dead. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
That is the second death. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. So who is being judged here is a question. Well, it would seem everyone, all people. But verse 12 specifically mentions the Book of Life as distinct from the book of judgment.
And we are— you see, of course, those in the Book of Life are those who belong to Jesus because he has paid our debt. He has paid for our sins. Are we still judged then in another way? It seems so. Jesus says that back in chapter 2.
He says, I will give to each one of you according to your works. So our eternity is secured by Christ and what he has done. But the things that we have done in this life in some way are scrutinized by the Lord. For those who do not know Jesus, who have not his record of righteousness given to them by faith, they are judged according to the things that they have done. And it says death and Hades are cast into this fire.
And again, it’s a personification because death and Hades are not people. The idea that is that death, which is common to all of us, that is the fate of all humans in rebellion to God— Hades is our common destiny— both of these are done away with. Jesus has entirely conquered death and the grave. It’s gone because of Jesus. And the lake of fire is then a figurative picture of this.
It’s not a denial of punishment, it’s just saying that— it’s describing the existence of some form that will take place. Satan and his angels are spiritual beings, and so their punishment is going to have to fit with what they are as non-physical beings, whatever that will look like. Something that’s often lost though in popular depictions of hell, it’s sort of like Satan is ruling, got his little pitchfork there, and he’s poking people and doing all these terrible things to them. That’s not the picture we have here. He is cast into it.
The one ruling hell is God Almighty. He is the one who oversees all of his creation. He is in charge. And so the first death would speak to the death of the saints— you physically die. The second death would speak of a spiritual death of the wicked.
The first resurrection would speak of spiritual renewal regeneration, new life of the saints. The second resurrection will speak of the physical life that’s restored to us. That’s what we long for. After we die, when Jesus returns, we will be resurrected from the dead with a body that is now immortal. All of that is to take place.
And so we return to the question, why does any of this matter? Because there are times when God’s people have been on the receiving end of terrible persecution. It’s difficult. And what we see so clearly is we win. That’s never in question.
And you are protected from spiritual death even though you may experience physical affliction. And we are repeatedly reminded in Scripture, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” We are told no one is going to get away with anything. Keep in mind, this cosmic battle represented here is through the means that God has already given to us. Jesus conquers his enemies. How?
By the word of truth. It’s his words of truth that conquer. How do they overcome? Revelation 12 earlier told us they overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives even to the point of death. See, many turn spiritual warfare into a physical warfare.
No, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. You see, we can trust the judge of all the earth to do right. He is not going to give to anyone beyond what they deserve. The judge of the earth is absolutely fair. He will give no more or no less than what each person deserves.
And that means we leave it entirely up to him to determine that. We don’t take on vengeance and judgment to ourselves. We leave it to God. They say, “I don’t know how all that’s gonna work out.” Well, neither do I, but we’re not God. We can trust that he will mete out to each one of us what we have done.
It will be fair. It will be just. And for those who are in Christ, his mercy has been extended. Jesus has taken upon himself the punishment that we deserve. That’s the good news of Jesus.
That is going into the world that Satan cannot ultimately extinguish. That’s the good news. Jesus has conquered, and we are a part of that messaging. That’s a part of the task of the church. And this is where we reflect and where we look like Jesus.
We love our enemies. We proclaim to them words of truth. And when They rail against us, spitefully misuse us. We return what our Savior returned.
He gave his life for his enemies. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There will be a time and a day when the accounts will come due and it will be too late. But now, now is the day of salvation. And we who have the truth, the word of God, the testimony of Jesus, we are called to go and to share that, to live that in the manner of Christ.
And if you think that’s easy, just try it. How do you love somebody who is reviling against you, who’s speaking ill of you? You do so by the power of the Spirit in you. The Holy Spirit changing us from the inside out, enabling us to do what we in our flesh are completely incapable of doing.
And as we step forward into this victory that’s already been established, that’s already there, that’s going to have its fulfillment, and it’s revelation when Jesus returns. We are assured of that victory, and it is the hope that we have. It’s the hope that we have that, that continues to tell us that there is a distant horizon that’s beyond this life, and that is what we live for. It’s not about arguing over words and semantics of, of how this verse or that or these events are gonna take place. It’s knowing that Jesus wins.
We’re on the winning team, so go out there and do the work of the team, the hard work.
Loving one another, forgiving one another as you have been forgiven in Christ Jesus. Those are easy things that we say until you have to put it into to the test. When you actually have to do that, you realize the warfare necessary. And that is what we overcome with, is the word of truth, the testimony of Jesus. The victory is assured.
This isn’t a fearful thing. This isn’t— we’re looking at the world and it’s all going apart and we gotta figure out how to how we bunker down and save ourselves from— no, we go into the midst of that already victorious.
They can’t do anything to you in the end beyond what the Lord allows. No one can snatch your eternal life from you because it’s not centered on you. It’s given in the person and work of Jesus and what he has done and his righteousness accounted to you by faith alone. That is the good news.
I think it’s so easy to look and to see the circumstances around us and we forget that. We start getting mad and angry at those who oppose us, the message. How easy that is. And in the midst of this, in this conquering, in this going forward, we do so as Jesus has done. His words are gonna overcome.
His truth will prevail.
And in the end, we will be justified by what Christ has done for us. And you will be so glad that you are not judged according to your works. For eternity. How slow we ought to be to want other people to get theirs. A spirit of vengeance where we want people to get what’s coming to them.
To be able to forestall and say, you know what, that day is coming, and the one who sits on the throne is going to give to each according to his due. In utter holiness, in utter righteousness, in utter justice. I don’t have to wish it one day sooner for someone because of my own dislike towards what they have said or done to me. In the same way, I can plead God’s mercy and grace for them because of what he has extended to me. That’s the beauty of the gospel.
That’s why we’re here. We’re just a bunch of sinners redeemed.
To him be the praise and the glory. That’s the, the praise that we see throughout Revelation is, is a worship of God’s people. For who? The worthiness of Jesus, our triune God. And we’re here as a small down payment —of what will one day be the full extension of that, with myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands praising God.
And yet here we are with just a taste of it now. Blessed be that wonderful taste of heaven, that wonderful down payment of what is coming to us in the fullness of God’s promises. Pray with me. Father, we do thank you. We do praise you, Lord.
It’s so easy for us to get sidetracked, and so we would ask, Father, keep us on, on point, keep us on mission, Father, that we would be about your business even while we rejoice in the victory that you have given to us through your Son. Father, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for your complete triumph. Father, thank you for saving sinners like us.
We bless you for the goodness and the mercy that we have received through your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.