Revelation 20

Revelation — Steve Gregg

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Revelation 20

RevelationSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg provides an interpretation of Revelation chapter 20, which is considered a controversial chapter in the Bible. Gregg discusses the representation of the thousand-year period in the chapter, which he believes to be a symbolic representation of a lengthy period of time. He also discusses the first resurrection and the difference between physical and spiritual resurrections. Gregg believes that the binding of the devil is a symbolic representation of a long period of time when Satan's power is curtailed, and interference with the church's mission is reduced.

Transcript

At this point, we're turning to Revelation chapter 20, which is, some scholars say, the most controversial chapter in the Bible. Now, you might not have heard as much controversy about this chapter as about some other things, but the reason it's called that is because all theological systems divide along the lines of what they make of the millennial kingdom. Now, by millennial, we mean the thousand-year reign.

There's only one place in the Bible that mentions a thousand-year reign, and that is in Revelation 20. So you might say, well, why would it be that the subject of a single chapter would be the issue over which all theological systems divide? And the answer is that even though there's only one chapter that mentions a thousand-year reign, there are many passages in the Bible that talk about the reign of Christ without mentioning a thousand years. Certainly, the Old Testament passages about the Messiah describe a kingdom of the Messiah and his reign.

And that is basically the ultimate fulfillment of the promises of God, the ultimate purpose of God in history. So, although there's only one chapter that speaks of a thousand years in connection with this reign, the reign of the Messiah, the kingdom of God, in other words, is the primary subject of all the Bible, and especially of Christ's teaching in the New Testament. So what we think about this reign of Christ as described here actually affects everything we think about the fulfillment of God's purposes in the world.

And we will read in this chapter about a thousand-year period. It will be mentioned six times in this one chapter, the thousand years. And the theological opinions divide over whether the thousand years is a literal thousand years that will occur after the second coming of Christ.

This is called the pre-millennial view because it holds that there will be a coming of Christ before the millennium. That's pre-millennial return of Christ. Then there's also a view that there will be a literal or almost literal thousand years reign before Jesus comes back.

And that's the teaching of post-millennialism. They believe in a coming of Christ after the thousand years, post-millennial return of Christ. And their view is that the gospel will be preached so effectively in the end times, at some point in the future, that essentially the whole world will have been converted or Christianized.

And therefore, there will be a thousand years. They don't necessarily always say it's a literal thousand years, but there will be a lengthy period of time during which the world continues to exist and world history goes on. But now, in a new era where Christ is acknowledged as king by all people, where every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Christ is Lord, and the world goes on.

So that the thousand year reign is something that occurs within history and which basically happens before Jesus comes back. The amillennial view holds that the thousand year reign is essentially co-extensive with the age of the church. In other words, that the church age from the first coming of Christ to the second coming of Christ is what is symbolically referred to as the thousand years here.

Now, it's no secret to our listeners that I believe in the amillennial position, though I was actually raised pre-millennial and taught that for a long time, many years. And I'm also now not unsympathetic with the post-millennial view. That is, I love the vision of post-millennialism, of the idea of Christ through the gospel conquering all the nations and ruling the world that way.

But I just don't understand this chapter that way. I don't understand, therefore, the millennial question in a post-millennial or a pre-millennial way. I have come to believe in the amillennial view, and it is that view that I will be sharing with you.

In order to do that, we need to look at the whole chapter at a glance. And so let's read through the 15 verses without comment, and I'll go through and analyze it after we've seen the big picture. It says, And I saw thrones and they who sat on them, and judgment was committed to them.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.

This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power.

But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him for a thousand years. Now, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

And the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away.

And there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged according to the works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.

Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Now, of course, one of the main debates about this chapter is its chronology. When does it occur? And right at the outset, the premillennialists has a prima facie advantage. Because the premillennialists believe that Jesus comes back before the thousand year reign.

And in Revelation 19, we saw what looked very much like the coming of Christ. We saw a great slaughter of the wicked. We saw the beast of the false prophet captured and thrown into the lake of fire at the end of chapter 19.

There is some evidence that we're looking there. I would say the best evidence is that chapter 19, at the end, is in fact describing the second coming of Christ. And therefore, when you come to chapter 20, perhaps one's instincts would suggest that this must be things that are going to happen after the second coming of Christ.

And therefore, the thousand years is placed where the premillennialists place it, after Jesus has come back. But there's some danger in making that assumption for the simple reason that we have already seen a breakup of chronology in the book of Revelation. That is, sometimes the book of Revelation tells the story and then goes back and tells it again.

It'll tell the story all the way to the end and then it'll start over. We saw this, for example, in chapter 11, where the seventh trumpet sounded. It certainly looked as much as any other passage in the Bible.

It looked like the second coming of Christ and I take it to be. I take chapter 11 and the seventh trumpet, verses 15 through 19, to be about the second coming of Christ at the end of the world. But then the very next chapter, 12, begins with the birth of Jesus again.

The woman who's pregnant and gives birth to a male child who's to rule the nations with a rod of iron. So we have the end of the story in chapter 11 and the beginning of it in chapter 12. Likewise, we saw in chapter 14 and verse 8 that it was announced that Babylon had fallen.

And in chapter 16, verse 19, it said the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. So we've seen essentially the end of Babylon in chapter 16.

But chapter 17 reintroduces Babylon alive and well. In fact, seemingly treating it as if this is the first time we've ever heard of Babylon. And she's seen as a harlot riding on a beast and we see the destruction of Babylon laid out again.

So we see again and again in Revelation, the story reaches an end of a sort. And then it resumes at the beginning again and tells the same story again. And that being so, we cannot rule out the possibility that chapter 19, in fact, does describe the second coming of Christ.

Without suggesting that chapter 20 must carry on the story beyond that point. Chapter 20 can go back to the beginning and start over. And that is at least a possibility and I believe the evidence will favor that option.

Now, in deciding whether the millennial reign, so called, begins at the second coming of Christ or at the first coming of Christ, we'll have to look at the hints that are given to us within the passage itself. Let's look at what is not controversial. Let's analyze the chapter in a way that nobody will dispute because it's just observation, not interpretation.

In the first three verses of Revelation 20, we see an angel with a chain binding the dragon and putting him in a pit. We are told that this will last for a thousand years. We're told that he is bound so that he might not deceive the nations anymore.

But when the thousand years are over, we are pre-announced, pre-told, that the dragon will be let go for a little while. But the action of the first three verses is simply the binding of the dragon, whom we know to be Satan. So Satan is bound in the first three verses.

Then we have three verses describing that period of time during which he is bound. It is described in a number of ways. John sees the souls of those who are beheaded reigning with Christ.

We're told that this is the first resurrection and that they reign with Christ for a thousand years. This is no doubt the thousand years during which Satan is bound. And so we have the binding of Satan for a thousand years in verses one through three.

Then we have a description of things transpiring within the thousand years that he is bound in verses four through six. That is three more verses. And then in the following three verses, six through nine, we have events that occur in what is called a little while.

At the end of the thousand years, Satan is released for a little while. And what he does during that time is recorded in the next verses. Verses seven, eight, and nine.

At least up to the beginning of verse nine. But verses nine through fifteen then describe events that happen after those things. This is a chronological account within itself.

You've got the binding. We've got the period during which the binding is in effect. We've got the end of the binding where he is released.

And then we have the judgment upon him which presumably is last of all. And so verses nine through fifteen would appear to describe events that are after this sequence of things. After the thousand years.

After the little while. Now, I'd like to begin at the end of this story and work backward if we can. Because what happens at the end of all of this is the second coming of Christ.

Now, if I could demonstrate that, it would demonstrate that Christ didn't come at the beginning of the thousand years. But rather at the end. And then we would have to identify the thousand years with something prior to the second coming of Christ.

We would either be amillennial or postmillennial then. Let's first of all deal with the question of whether the premillennial view is viable. The premillennial view is that Jesus came back at the beginning of this time.

That this thousand years began at the second coming. Now, I would point out there's no reference at all in the whole chapter to Jesus being on earth. If he had come back, that's where we would expect to find him.

There is no reference to him being on earth in this chapter. In fact, the people who are reigning with him are apparently in heaven with him. Because he doesn't see them in resurrected bodies.

Which would be in fact the case if Jesus came back. When Jesus comes back, we'll be resurrected in bodies. Instead, he sees the souls of those who are martyrs reigning with Christ.

He doesn't say whether they're in heaven or earth, but that's easy enough to deduce. When and where would you ever see the souls of people disembodied? It can only be after they've died and before they're resurrected. The only time you could ever suggest that a person's soul is separate from his body would be after he departs from his body at death and before he returns to his body in the resurrection.

These souls of the martyrs that are reigning are before the resurrection. Therefore, that is before the second coming of Christ. When Christ comes, he'll raise the dead.

These have not been raised. They are in heaven reigning with Christ. Presumably, Jesus is also in heaven with them.

Because that's where they're with him, reigning. This alone might be enough to settle the question. Certainly, there's more that needs to be said because of the strong resistance to this position that now exists among premillennialists.

Let's look at verses 9 through 15 first of all. What are the elements there? First of all, fire comes down from heaven and defeats and destroys the devil and his armies who are encamped around the beloved city. Fire from heaven comes down and destroys them.

The dragon, the devil, is then thrown into the lake of fire along with the beast and the false prophet. Then we read that there's a resurrection of the dead. All who are in the graves and all who are in the sea who died and were buried there, they come out and they come to a general judgment.

As a result of the judgment, some are apparently saved and some are clearly thrown into the lake of fire. Now, it doesn't mention any being saved at this point. Some would say, well, this is not a resurrection that includes the righteous.

You see, the premillennial view holds that when Jesus comes back, the righteous will be raised, but the wicked will not be raised until after the millennium. Why would they say that? Well, we see very clearly after the millennium in the story, there's a resurrection. It does not specifically mention righteous people, but it does mention people thrown into the lake of fire.

So the premillennialist has the luxury of saying this is a resurrection that only involves the wicked and not the righteous. After all, the righteous are mentioned earlier in verses 5 and 6 as being in the first resurrection. And so the premillennialist can see there are two resurrections, the resurrection of the righteous at the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the wicked after the millennium.

These two resurrections, the righteous at the beginning of the millennium and the unrighteous at the end of the millennium, clearly are separated from each other by at least a thousand years. This is the premillennial view. And the reference to the first resurrection in verses 5 and 6 is very helpful to the premillennialist, because it does mean then we have two resurrections separated by a thousand years.

And certainly the first one, if it is the resurrection of the righteous, it must be at the second coming of Christ. So we have the second coming of Christ earlier than the millennium or leading up to the millennium. These people in the millennium are participants in the first resurrection.

And then later others are resurrected after a thousand years. This is a very strong argument for premillennialism. Not strong enough in my opinion, but I just want you to be aware of it.

We will be dealing with this argument. But suffice it to say that at the end of the thousand years we see a number of things. First of all, fire from heaven comes down and destroys the wicked.

Secondly, and I didn't mention this a moment ago, in verse 11, there is a great white throne set and the heavens and the earth flee away from the face of the one sitting on the throne. This person is Christ. And by the way, if the glory of Christ is so great at this point that the heavens and the earth cannot endure his glory sitting on the throne, it invites the question, why wasn't his glory so great a thousand years earlier when he showed up? If Jesus came back at the beginning of the thousand years, glorified, so that he consumed the wicked with the brightness of his appearing, as it says in 2 Thessalonians 2, why was it that the heavens and the earth didn't flee away at that time? Why were the heavens and the earth able to endure the glory of Jesus at his second coming and endure for another thousand years, but then his glory somehow is intensified so that the heavens and the earth could not endure the sight of his glory? It's a problem for premillennialists, I think.

But the point is, the heavens and the earth flee away in verse 11. And of course, when you get to chapter 21, he says, I saw new heavens, new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. So what do we got? We've got the fire from heaven.

We've got the end of the heavens and the earth. We've got the resurrection and we've got the judgment. Those are the factors that we find in verses 9 through 15.

All of them at the end of this period that includes the thousand years and the little while. I would like to argue that we can show conclusively that all four of these things, the fire from heaven, the end of the heavens and the earth, the resurrection and the judgment all occur at the second coming of Christ. If this is correct, then we have placed the second coming of Christ chronologically at the end, not the beginning of this chapter.

Can that be done? What about this fire from heaven? In second Thessalonians chapter one. And by the way, let me just say that we we need to use books like the gospels and the epistles, which are not written in apocalyptic imagery to give us our doctrines that we then will recognize as retold in the in the symbolic visions of Revelation. We don't use Revelation to interpret the rest of the Bible.

You don't take what is obscure and use that superimpose what you get from that on passages that are written in more literal form. You follow the literal language to get your doctrine and then you recognize that doctrine in the symbolism of a much more obscure passage. That's the way to do hermeneutics.

Thessalonians is not written in apocalyptic literature. It's just a letter that Paul's writing to people describing the future. And in second Thessalonians chapter one, verse six, he says, Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us.

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we are told that when Jesus comes back, it'll be in flaming fire, taking vengeance on the wicked. That is the depiction we see in Revelation 20 in verse nine.

The wicked are encamped around the saints and flaming fire comes from heaven and consumes them, just as Paul associated with the second coming of Christ. By the way, if Jesus did come at the beginning of the millennium, he would have come as Paul described, destroying those who are wicked and who don't obey the gospel. That means that they would have been dispensed with a thousand years earlier than we read it happening in Revelation 20 in verse nine.

The wicked would have been destroyed at the coming of Christ, as Paul said. But you see, it is the coming of Christ that we're reading about in Revelation 20 in verse nine. This can be established by further proofs.

In 2 Peter 3.10, Peter says, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. This I take to be the second coming of Christ. I don't know of any better theories.

I do know of hyper-preterists who do believe this is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. We will discuss when we get to Revelation 21 and 22 the merits and demerits of that theory. Suffice it to say, at this point, most Christians, including myself, do believe the day of the Lord that comes as a thief in the night is the second coming at the end of the world.

And it is certainly described as being the end of the world. It says, In which, that is, in the day that Jesus comes, the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Now, consider Peter's eschatology here. He says the day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night.

What's going to happen? The heavens and the earth are going to be dissolved. Well, that's what happens in Revelation 20 and verse 11, isn't it? The heavens and the earth flee away from the face of Him who is on the throne. And then what does Peter say in verse 13? We're looking for a new heavens and a new earth.

Interestingly, he wasn't looking for a millennial reign of Christ. He apparently didn't know about that. He makes no reference to such a thing.

He says when Jesus comes, we're going to have a new heaven and a new earth. That's what happens in what? Chapter 21, verse 1 of Revelation. That is, at the end of Revelation 20, and the opening of chapter 21, we have the vanishing of the heavens and the earth as they are now, and their replacement by a new heavens and a new earth.

And that's what Peter thinks is going to happen when Jesus comes back. He says we're looking for... Now, if he was a premillennialist, he'd say, we're looking for a thousand year reign of Christ when He returns. Peter knew nothing of such a doctrine.

It hadn't been introduced to the church yet in his lifetime. And he thought we are looking for that which comes after the thousand years of Revelation 20. We're looking for a new heavens and a new earth.

That's what we're looking for because we expect the present heaven and earth to dissolve at the coming of Jesus. Therefore, we've seen from Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1, 8, that fire from heaven accompanies Jesus at His coming. We see fire from heaven in Revelation 20, in verse 9. We see from Peter in 2 Peter 3, that the destruction of the heavens and the earth and their replacement by a new heavens and a new earth are expected at the second coming of Christ.

We find that in Revelation 20, in verse 11. Now, what about the resurrection and the judgment? Now, the premillennialist believes the resurrection that we find at the end of chapter 20 is only the resurrection of the lost. The righteous are not there because they've been resurrected previously a thousand years earlier.

But, is that really true? The same author who wrote the gospel of John wrote the book of Revelation. And, we may assume that his theology remained the same in both writings. In John chapter 5, quoting Jesus, in John 5, 28, Jesus is quoted as saying, Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

Now, Jesus is clearly talking about the resurrection because He talks about people who are in their graves coming out. This is not figurative. This is bodies in the grave.

This is not a spiritual resurrection, but a physical one. And, He says that will happen at a certain hour. Certainly, the word hour suggests not an extended period of time, at a certain point in time.

The hour is coming in which all who are in their graves will hear His voice. Now, is this the first or second resurrection He's talking about? Is He talking about the resurrection of the righteous here? Or, is He talking about the resurrection of the wicked in this particular hour of which He speaks? Well, He says all of them. Some will come to a resurrection of life, some to a resurrection of condemnation.

Jesus was only aware of one resurrection, one moment in time, one hour, in which everyone who is dead would come out at the same time, the good and the bad. Jesus didn't know about resurrections being divided into two separate resurrections, one for the good and one for the bad. Neither did Paul.

In Acts chapter 24, when Paul is standing before Felix and trying to explain his views and how inappropriate it is for the Jews to accuse him of heresy since he believes the same thing they do on this key subject, Paul says in Acts 24, 15, I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead. Now, does he mean the righteous or the wicked one? Both. Of the just and the unjust.

There's a resurrection of the dead. The just and the unjust will participate in it. You do not find any reference in Jesus or Paul or any apostle to more than one resurrection.

In fact, the righteous and the unrighteous will rise the same day. This is clearly taught in John chapter 6. John chapter 6 and verse 39. Jesus said, This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.

Verse 40. And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him, that's the Christians, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Likewise, in verse 44.

No one can come to me unless the Father draws him, that's the Christians being drawn, and I will raise him up at the last day. How about verse 54 of the same chapter? Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. This seems to be like a broken record.

He keeps talking about the people who are his people, who eat his flesh, drink his blood, who have eternal life, whom the Father draws and who come to him, who see the Son and believe in him, and have everlasting life. These people, the church, the righteous, he will raise them up what day? The last day. But what about the thousand years that follow that? There aren't a thousand years that follow that.

It's the last day. The day which has no others following it. That's why it's called the last one.

Now, in John 12, in verse 48, Jesus said, he who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. Oh, that same day.

That's the day he's raising up his people, the one he called the last day. What's he also doing? He's also judging the wicked, judging those who reject him. Everybody's judged the same day.

The righteous rise, the dead rise. They all go to the great white throne and stand before him. Remember what Jesus taught in the parable of the sheep and the goats? It's in Matthew 25, in verse 31.

Matthew 25, 31, he said, when the Son of Man will come in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory and he will call all the nations before him and he will separate between the nations as a shepherd separates between the sheep and the goats. So when Jesus comes back, sits on his throne, calls all the nations before him, that means some are going to have to come out of the graves because a lot of them have died. The resurrection takes place.

Everyone stands before God. He separates between them at that time between sheep and goats. The goats clearly, as the story progresses, are lost.

The sheep are saved. So the goats, we are told in verse 46, Matthew 25, 46 says, these will go away to everlasting punishment. That's where the goats go.

But the righteous go into the millennial reign, right? No, the righteous go into eternal life, not a thousand year interim, but an eternal state. When Jesus comes back, all people are brought before him, good and bad, sheep and goats. They are consigned to their eternal fates at that point.

There are none going into a temporary a thousand year fate. Jesus knows nothing of a millennium. There's no reference in any of the teachings of Christ to a millennium.

There's no reference in the teachings of Paul or James or Peter to a millennium. Look what Paul says about the subject in Romans 8. In Romans 8, Paul said, in verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. When? He's going to tell us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. So the glory that awaits us is going to be what he calls the revealing of the sons of God for who they are. For the creation, that'd be the heavens and the earth, presumably, was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

That would be apparently at the fall. The fall brought the curse upon the creation, and the creation's been subjected to this against its own will. Because, verse 21, the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Now the creation will be set free from the bondage of corruption that came at it during the fall, the curse. What we will find in Revelation 21, of course, or actually 22, verse 3, about the new Jerusalem and the new heavens and earth is it says there is no more curse. In the new heavens and new earth, the curse is gone.

Paul's talking about that. The curse that was imposed on the world will be removed from the world. The creation will be delivered from this condition.

Of course, he's talking about the new heavens and new earth. Then he says, verse 22, for we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now, not only they, but we also, who have the first fruits of the spirit, even ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for, what? The adoption, the redemption of our body. That's the resurrection.

That's when the creation is going to be delivered from the bondage of decay. That's when the new heavens, new earth, the curse is lifted, when we are resurrected. When's that? That's when Jesus comes back.

So Paul's theology, and Peter's, and Jesus' is that there is a last day. In that day, the dead will rise. All will be judged.

They'll be consigned to eternal fates. The heavens and the earth will vanish. There'll be a new heavens, new earth.

That's everything that we read about at the end, not the beginning of Revelation 20. So, if we take the passages in the scripture that are not written in symbolism, we gain this eschatological picture. There is a day of judgment.

It's the day of the Lord. It's the day of Christ, the day of God, Peter calls it. It's the last day, Jesus calls it.

It's the day when the righteous will rise. The wicked will also rise and be judged. The earth will be dissolved.

The heavens will burn up. There'll be a new heavens, new earth. All those things that happen at the end of Revelation 20 happen when Jesus comes back according to the testimony of the remainder of the Bible outside of Revelation.

Revelation does not contradict, does not introduce new eschatology contrary to what Peter, Paul, Jesus, and even John elsewhere present. It is telling the same story in symbolic language as Revelation does, but we can see the second coming of Christ is not at the beginning of the thousand years, but it's at the end, which means that we either have an amillennial position or a postmillennial position. You see, remember, the postmillennial view is that even in our future where we stand now, there is still a time to look forward to when the world will be Christianized for a lengthy period of time.

At the end of that time, Jesus will come. So the postmillennial view places the coming of Christ at the end of the thousand years, which is, of course, the proper place to put it, as we've seen. But the amillennial view does the same, but differently.

The amillennial view doesn't consider that the thousand years is a thousand years of actual peace on earth because the world has been Christianized, which ends with the second coming of Christ, but the thousand years is the whole age of the church, including the part we're living in. And so both the amillennial view and the postmillennial view have this in common. They both believe the so-called millennium will end when Jesus returns.

The difference is that the amillennialist sees the thousand years as representing the whole period of the church age, the postmillennialist only conditions that will prevail during a lengthy period at the end of the church age, but within the church age nonetheless. So both of them place the coming of Christ at the end of the total period. Now, let's go back and look at what happened in the first eight verses, because this is going to have to be explained biblically as well.

If this whole period of time ends with the coming of Christ, then we're either looking at a future millennial kingdom before the coming of Christ, which the postmillennialists expect, or we're just looking at the church age. And we will, of course, have to explain what that first resurrection is, because it does suggest something of more than one resurrection, and yet every other passage in the Bible that talks about the resurrection makes it one event. So what does John here mean when he talks about the first resurrection contrasted with the second? That can be answered without serious difficulty.

Now, the first three verses, he saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit, and a chain. And he lays hold on the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, bound him for a thousand years, cast him in the bottomless pit, and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should not deceive the nations anymore till the thousand years were finished, that after these things he must be released for a little while. So we see the binding of the devil.

This is all very symbolic. Many people don't really take it symbolically. Pre-millennialists think it's more or less literal.

They might admit that, you know, you can't really bind the devil with a literal chain. But maybe there's like a spiritual chain or something, because the devil's a spirit. And by the way, he's not literally a dragon either.

That's, you know, he's not a dragon. He's like a spiritual being. He's not a mythical animal or a reptile.

He's called both a dragon and a serpent in this chapter, neither of which are literal. So already we're getting kind of moved from a strictly literal viewpoint. We've got a spiritual being depicted as a reptile, and we've got something binding him, which is described as a chain.

But it can't be anything like we think of as a chain. It must represent some other kind of binding. Then you've got this pit that's bottomless, the abyss, that could be literal.

I mean, although it could be figurative too. In any case, it's got a lid and a lock and a seal. You know, it's tied down pretty good.

The idea here is of a total, you know, incarceration that cannot be broken free from by the devil until someone external to him lets him out, which they will in verse 7. But what is it talking about? First of all, the symbolism needs to be acknowledged. We've already pointed out some points of it that are symbolic. I believe the whole thing is symbolic.

Why say part of it is and the rest isn't? Where are you going to draw the line? The thousand years, I believe, is symbolic. Of what? Of just a long period of time. Like when Psalm 90 in verse 4 says to God, A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

Now, the psalmist is not making a one-to-one correspondence between a thousand years and a one day. He's saying a thousand years is like yesterday, or it's even like a watch in the night. That's three hours.

So, in other words, he's not trying to make some kind of a correspondence. He's trying to say that what to us is an extremely long time, like a thousand years, is really to God just a really short time. It's like yesterday, or like a few hours only.

And so Peter repeats that in 2 Peter 3, where he says, A day to the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day, making the same point that Psalm makes in similar language. That's, of course, in 2 Peter 3 and verse 8. So, a thousand years just means a long time, in contrast to a shorter time, a day, or a watch in the night, or whatever. A thousand isn't literal.

It just means a long time, indeterminate length. And that is in keeping with the way a thousand is generally used in the Bible. When we read that God keeps covenant to a thousand generations, it's not necessary for us to think the number thousand is literal.

When it says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, it need not be a literal thousand, a statistical number. When the psalmist says, A day in your courts is better than a thousand. Again, thousand is being used consistently in these passages to simply mean an indeterminate large number.

And that's in the books of the Bible that are not as symbolic as the book of Revelation. If it's not used literally in those books, then to impose a literal meaning on it when it occurs in the book of Revelation would be extremely poor hermeneutics. A thousand years just means a long time.

It's not approximate or exact. It's just symbolic. It could be ten thousand years, for all anyone knows.

It's just a long time. It's not necessary to try to estimate it. By making literal estimates, people have made some big mistakes in calculating the time of the coming of Christ and so forth.

But being literal here is a mistake. The dragon is bound, in some sense, for a long period of time, after which he's released for a short period of time, just as indeterminate in its length as the longer period of time is. Now, what is he bound from? He's bound from deceiving the nations.

He's bound so that he might not deceive the nations. When he is released in verse 7 and 8, it says he goes out to deceive the nations. What this devil is about is deceiving the nations, the Gentiles.

And when he's bound, that curtails his activity of deceiving the nations. I'd like to suggest to you that this occurred at the first coming of Christ. And I wouldn't have thought that if Jesus hadn't said so himself.

Because it's kind of counterintuitive, really. But since Jesus said it, I can't really do away with what he said on the matter. He said, in Matthew 12 and verse 29, or else how can one enter a strong man's house? By the way, all commentators agree he means by strong man, Satan.

He's entering Satan's house. How can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, which is what Jesus was doing and what he's explaining? This conversation took place because they said he's casting out demons by Beelzebub. No, there's a better explanation than that, certainly.

I am casting out demons because I am plundering Satan's house. And you cannot enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless you first bind the strong man. Now what Jesus is saying is there's things you can see and there's things you can't see but you can deduce from what you can see.

What you can see is I have come into a strong man's house, Satan, and I'm plundering his house without any resistance from him. He cannot stop me. I can cast demons out of anyone I want to because I'm Jesus, and I am plundering the strong man's house.

Now he says you should be able to deduce something from that because you can't do that. You can't just walk into a strong man's house and have your way with his stuff unless you just render him, you have to incapacitate him. You've got to bind him.

You've got to do something that prevents him from being able to resist you. Now here the imagery is a binding. In the parallel in Luke, the imagery is a little different.

In the parallel in Luke he says when a strong man, fully armed, guards his house, his goods are at peace, but when one stronger than he comes, Jesus said, he takes away all his armor in which he trusted and plunders his house. That parallel is in Luke chapter 11, verses 21 through 23. Same teaching, slightly different images.

In this case, in Matthew, he has to bind the strong man. In Luke, he just has to take away the guy's armor. Both are images that are not literal, but they both suggest if you're going to have your way in a strong man's domain, you're going to have to disable him from any ability to resist you.

Take away his armor is one way to say that. Bind him is another way to say that. It's not literal, but it is an image that Jesus uses.

He is saying, I have bound Satan, and that is why you see me plundering his house. I have taken away his armor. Now some people say, well, how could you possibly say that Satan is bound today? Well, we might just ask Jesus, how could Jesus say that he had bound Satan? Jesus was saying that Satan was bound in his day.

And yet, Satan was not literally bound. Satan was still active. Later, he inhabited Judas and others.

Jesus still cast out more demons after this. The devil was still active in the world. So why did Jesus say he was bound? Well, binding him simply means something about one aspect.

There's a teaching he's giving here. He's saying that he is able to plunder Satan's house. That means Satan cannot resist him.

Satan has been disempowered. He's been incapacitated. Satan is in a condition that is analogous to a man being tied up.

When somebody's taking his stuff, he can't resist. He's overwhelmed. And although Satan is not literally sitting in a dungeon somewhere with shackles on him, Jesus sees his own victory over Satan as suitably likened to binding a strong man.

If it is suitably likened to binding a strong man in Jesus' teaching, why would it not be suitably likened to what Jesus did in John's vision? Why would it be strange for John to say the same thing Jesus said, only to say it in a graphic vision, where instead of talking about binding a strong man, he's talking about a dragon with a chain and a pit and a lid and all that stuff. It has to do with interfering with Satan's career of deceiving the nations. He's bound so he cannot deceive the nations as before.

Well, what do we know about Satan's career before Jesus came? All the nations were in his lap. No divine revelation had come to them. They were all in the dark.

They all worshipped demons. Most of them sacrificed their own children to demons. The world was in darkness.

The only nation that had any light of a significant amount was Israel, and even they succumbed often. But outside of Israel, it was darkness. Satan had an unchallenged monopoly on the nations.

He had them totally deceived in false religions. What happened when Jesus came? He said to his disciples, Hey, we're going to break out of the borders here of Israel. I want you to go to all the nations and make disciples there, because all authority in heaven and earth belongs to me now, and they need to know it.

They need to be brought under me. You need to go and teach them to observe everything I've commanded, because I'm the Lord of everything, and you go to the nations and make disciples out of them. In other words, Jesus sent his army to invade the realm where Satan had never been challenged before.

And although Satan still, of course, you don't want to take the imagery of Revelation in some kind of absolute literal sense. I mean, you might, but I don't. I don't think it's right.

What it's saying is that Satan has been hindered in the same way that a strong man is bound. Satan cannot resist. Satan cannot stop the church from bringing the truth.

Satan cannot have the monopoly on the nations to deceive them anymore. The truth is coming to the nations, and has been coming to the nations now for 2,000 years, and Satan cannot stop it. Satan cannot successfully resist it.

He might as well be in a pit with a chain on, as far as his ability to resist is concerned. And it's the same kind of imagery Jesus used. And if Jesus used it, then John could use it.

Or we could say the Holy Spirit, who gave him these visions, could use it. And therefore, the binding of Satan is said to be something elsewhere in Scripture. It's said to be what Jesus did at his first coming.

In Colossians 2, Paul says, in Colossians 2.15, Paul says that Christ disarmed the principalities and powers. That's the demonic forces, Satan's forces. Christ disarmed them.

Remember, taking away the strong man's armor, in which he trusted, and plundering his house? That's what Jesus has done. He has disarmed the principalities and powers, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them, in it, or some manuscripts say in him, but it's referring to what Jesus accomplished when he was here the first time. He disarmed the demonic world.

He took away the strong man's armor, in which he trusted. And he's been plundering his house ever since, through the gospel, through the church. Now, in Hebrews 2, verse 14, it says, Inasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he, Christ himself, also shared in the same.

That is, he became a human. He partook in flesh and blood, became man. So that, through death, that is Christ's death, his crucifixion, through death, he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.

Jesus destroyed the devil through his death. Now, the word destroy, what's that mean? There's different words in the Greek for destroy, and they don't all mean the same thing, but this word is the word katergaio, which means, if you look it up in electron, katergaio means to reduce to inactivity. The literal translation would be that Jesus, through his death, reduced him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, to inactivity.

This is imagery similar to binding. If you bind someone, you kind of reduce them to inactivity, don't you? In other words, through death, Jesus reduced Satan's activities in a huge degree, but not all his activities. Satan's not literally in a pit somewhere with a chain.

That's figurative. He's still busy in the world doing many things. In fact, he's deceiving those who will allow themselves to remain deceived, but he has no monopoly over the nations.

He can't deceive the nations en masse anymore because Christ is informing and enlightening the nations en masse. The nations are coming over to Christ's side because they're seeing the light. Those who sat in darkness have seen a great light, it says, referring to Christ's ministry.

So, the binding of Satan is simply telling us, in Revelation 20, of a remarkable change that occurred because of Christ's coming here. Now, what about the thousand years themselves in Revelation 20, verses 4 through 6? I saw thrones and they who sat on them. Judgment was committed to them, and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not compromised with the beast, and so forth.

And it says at the end of that, they lived and reigned for a thousand years. Now, many translations, the last line of verse 4 says, they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The Greek word in the particular tense that is translated here, lived, is either a constantive aorist or an aggressive aorist.

Now, you don't know what those words mean, and I barely know what they mean. But I did study this out because there is a difference in translations. The aggressive and the constantive aorists have slightly different meanings, although they look the same.

The aorist looks the same, but its import is different in different cases. The word here, esadzo, I think it is. It's the form of living in the aorist.

It can be translated lived. As it is here. Meaning, lived on, continued to live.

That's the constantive aorist. If it's the constantive, it means they're constantly living. They're living on.

The same word in the aorist, the same form, can be translated aggressive aorist, which would mean came to life. They began to live. You would not have the word any different in the Greek to say either of those two things.

It either is they lived on, constantly, or they came to life. Many new translations, especially the ones translated by pre-millennialists, translated they came to life and reigned for a thousand years, thus suggesting, of course, resurrection. The righteous are resurrected, of course, at the coming of Christ.

To say they came to life and reigned for a thousand years places the thousand years after the second coming of Christ, after these people rise from the dead. They came to life, suggests resurrection. The pre-millennial versions, of which most modern translations are, they translated they came to life.

The King James and the New King James were translated by amillennialists. Therefore, they translated lived. The question is, which way is the correct way? This same word in the same tense, exactly the same, is found two other times in Revelation.

I have to say that I don't have them at my fingertips, but one of them is a reference to Christ, which says he died and lived. It can be translated he died and came to life, speaking of his resurrection, or it can say he died and he nonetheless continues to live today, though he died. In that instance, when it speaks of Christ, it sounds like it's talking about resurrection.

He died and then, et sadzo, either lived or came to life. Came to life sounds like a better translation in that instance. However, the other occurrence is when it talks about the beast, which says he had a mortal head wound, but he, et sadzo, he had a mortal head wound, but he came to life, or he had a mortal head wound, or he lived on.

In this case, of course, he lived on. The beast never died. He had seven heads.

One of them was wounded mortally. Six of them were still in good health. He suffered a serious wound, but he did not die.

He suffered a head wound, but he lived. Et sadzo, then, in one case, when talking about Christ, seems to be talking about his resurrection. In the case of the beast, the same word seems to talk about his simply continuing to live.

That means it could be translated either way in this third instance in Revelation 20. This is the third time that word appears. It's used one way in one of the previous cases and the other way in the other, which makes it a toss-up.

Is this one lived or came to life? If you're premillennial, then came to life works, kind of. If you're not premillennial, you could say they lived on. These are people who died.

It says they were martyred for Christ. They were beheaded, but he saw them living on. Not on earth, certainly.

He saw the souls of them. This was not on earth. If this, in fact, was the resurrection, he would not see their souls.

He would see their resurrected bodies. Therefore, to say they came to life and reigned with him for a thousand years, when in fact it's their souls he's seen, that's a strange way to speak about life in heaven. Disembodied is coming to life.

They were already alive before they died. He that believes in Jesus has eternal life and will not come into condemnation. He has already passed from death to life.

They already were alive before they died and they lived on after they died. In other words, their death did not end their life. I saw them, he says.

I saw their souls enthroned. They were ruling for a thousand years with Christ and they lived on. Now, by the way, the word reigned is also in the same aorist tense and it can also be ingressive or constantive, but what would it sound like if it was they came to life and started to reign for a thousand years? Or what about they lived and reigned for a thousand years? It seems like it's describing a continuous living and reigning, not simply beginning to live and reign.

It's for a thousand years that this happens. The thousand years means the whole church age. Those who die in Christ continue to live through the remainder of the church age, through the whole thousand year period.

Now, everybody else who dies doesn't. It says the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection.

So, when Christians die, they live on. When non-Christians die, they don't. And they won't live again until the end of time when the resurrection occurs.

That's what we're told in verse 5. Now, it says this is the first resurrection. And this is where I think this is the very strongest point for the pre-millennials because it sounds like it suggests there's two resurrections, this one and the one at the end of the thousand years. This one is clearly talking about saved people.

So, it must be the resurrection of the righteous. Whereas, at the end, it must be just the resurrection of the lost. And therefore, we have two resurrections with a millennium sandwiched in between them.

But as we saw, Jesus and Paul knew of no two resurrections, only one, that involved the wicked and the righteous. So, what could possibly be meant by the first resurrection? By the way, this passage, Revelation 20, verses 5 and 6, are perhaps the only places in the Bible that speak of a first resurrection or any kind of distinction of resurrection of one from another. So, it's this verse alone we have to explain.

The rest of the scripture always speaks of one resurrection. That includes everybody. What can we do with this phrase? Back to John.

John wrote Revelation. He also wrote the Gospel of John. Might as well let him explain himself.

Or rather, let Jesus explain himself in John's record. In John 5, again, remember we saw in verse 28, Jesus' reference to the physical resurrection at the end of time. He said, Do not marvel at this.

John 5, 28. For the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Some who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.

That's the physical resurrection. He said, The hour is coming. That's a future thing, going to happen.

But look at verse 25. Jesus says in verse 25, We saw in verse 28, the hour is coming. But here, in verse 25, the hour is coming and now is.

That means there's a sense of futureness about this statement. And a sense in which it's presently true. What is presently true and futurely true? Dead people hear the voice of the Son of God and live.

Well, we don't have to guess what the future part is, the hour that is coming. He tells us that in plain terms in verse 28. The hour is coming when those who are in the graves, dead bodies in the graves will come forth.

They'll hear the voice of the Son of Man come forth. That's the resurrection. But what is the sense in which now is dead people hearing the voice of the Son of God and living? He answers that as well in verse 24.

This has already happened for some people. Who? The people who believe in Him. They have passed from death into life.

Spiritually, of course. The hour is coming when their bodies will pass from death into life. Their bodies will come out of the graves and live.

But in the meantime, they are spiritually passing from death into life. They're born again, in other words. The first resurrection, according to John's gospel, is when you're born again.

The second is that which happens at the end of the age, which is the physical resurrection of everybody. When John speaks in chapter 20 of Revelation of the first resurrection, he's talking about those who are born again. Being born again is the first resurrection.

The church age, the thousand years, is the time of people being born again, which is a spiritual resurrection. The physical resurrection will not occur until Jesus comes back at the end of this period of time. The people who are not saved won't live again until then.

They'll come out of their graves then. But we continue to live even after we die. We reign with Christ.

The dead, as well as the living in Christ, are alive and reigning with Him during this thousand years. He says in verse 6, Blessed and holy is the one who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power.

Now, the second death, we have not been told about yet. But we're told in chapter 20 in verse 14 that the lake of fire is the second death. So, you've got two deaths and two resurrections.

One death is, of course, physical death. The other is the second death, which we don't know what the nature of that is. We might call that spiritual death.

Maybe. I don't know. But it's not natural death.

It's another death. Natural death is the first death. The lake of fire is the second death.

We have two deaths. There's also two resurrections. One is the physical, natural resurrection.

The other is another kind of resurrection. Just as the second death is a different kind of death than natural death. So, the first resurrection is a different kind of resurrection than physical resurrection.

There are two, a physical and a spiritual. And John has made that clear in John chapter 5. Actually, Jesus made that clear in his teaching. So, we have Satan bound during the present age from certain activity of deceiving the nations.

Not entirely. The language is extreme. It sounds like he's shut up and absolutely, you know, incapacitated.

Not active at all. But we should be aware of making too much literalness of the visions in Revelation. The idea is the same here as it is in the teaching of Jesus and Paul in the book of Hebrews about what Jesus accomplished against Satan when he was here the first time.

But then in verse 7, And then we have, of course, the events associated with the second coming of Christ. Now, this little while at the end, I presume, has not begun yet. I believe this is probably a future thing.

And we saw in chapter 11 a similar dichotomy between the vast majority of the church age, on one hand, and a little while at the end where the church seems to be defeated or at least is not on the offensive anymore. We saw that in chapter 11 where the two witnesses representing the church had a lengthy period of ministry followed by a very short period of incapacitation. They were three years ministry, three and a half days dead is the imagery that was used.

But the imagery is the same here. This time, the longer period is not three and a half years. It's likened to a thousand years.

The shorter period is not three and a half days, but it's an undesignated length of time. But both visions, chapter 11 and chapter 20, give us the same eschatology. For the most part, the church age is characterized by the church moving forward to the nations, taking the gospel to the nations, obstructing the devil's ability, inhibiting the devil's ability to deceive the nations by bringing truth and light to the nations.

But that, apparently, is a circumstance that will be reversed briefly at the end. And that little brief period at the end is what will be interrupted by the coming of Christ. Now, the symbolism is too great for us to be very specific about what this will look like, but we can say that he's released in the sense that he was previously free to deceive the nations.

It sounds like after the gospel has been preached to the nations, the devil will have one last chance to try to deceive who he can. And the church will be perhaps under persecution, perhaps driven underground. The picture is of being besieged.

The beloved city, this is not in one location, the church is worldwide, so this is a worldwide siege of the church. Perhaps political, perhaps, who knows. I mean, some kind of restricting of the church's activities globally.

There have been, of course, local and national persecutions of the church over a period of time throughout history, but there's never been a time where the entire church worldwide has been besieged by a devil who's at large again with many of the same liberties that he had before Jesus even came. The nations, masses of them, symbolically referred to as Gog and Magog to reminisce about Ezekiel 38 and 39, they will come against the beloved city. The beloved city in Revelation is the church.

We will see that if we have not been convinced of it yet. We will see it in the description of the beloved city in the next chapter. And so it is the church besieged by the nations of the world.

What this will look like in actual events, I do not know, but it may not be far off. Certainly severe persecution of the church, driving the church underground so that it does not have a visible witness above ground because it's basically fighting for its life, for its survival. This has happened in some countries.

It has never yet happened to the whole church, and it sounds like that's what is described here. And so it may be that we should expect, maybe in our lifetimes, maybe later, sometime in the future, at the end of the thousand years, so to speak, Satan will again get a chance to do some serious harm and threaten in a big way the church. God has always intended for his people to undergo testing because what we're being trained for is so magnificent.

The responsibilities we will have in reigning with Christ are so demanding in a sense of our loyalty and of our character that there are severe tests being offered in this lifetime, and one will test the whole final generation of the church, apparently. Now, a little while. How long is a little while? I wish I knew.

Back when I first became an amillennialist, I still believed in a future seven-year tribulation. So my view was that it'll be the seven-year tribulation that'll be this little while that the devil's loosed again, or at least during the period that the Antichrist reigns. I no longer believe that the Bible has anything to say about a seven-year tribulation, but that doesn't mean there isn't some kind of tribulation or some kind of trouble.

It's not the tribulation Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24 or even the one that Revelation talks about in chapter 7, verse 14, as far as I'm concerned. But it is nonetheless a tribulation. Paul said, when I was with you, he told the Thessalonians in chapter 3 of 1 Thessalonians, he said, when I was with you, I told you we would suffer tribulation.

And Jesus said in John 16, 33, in the world you will have tribulation. And so we shall. And of course the church has throughout its history in certain places.

You and I haven't, not yet. But the church will, apparently. That seems to be what is described here.

How long will it last? We may hope it is very, very short. But we're not told. It's just as inexact as the thousand years is in its prediction.

I would like to think it'd only be a few weeks or months. It seems probably more likely it'd be a few years. But it might be a very long time.

I had a friend, a Baptist minister, an old man who was an amillennialist. I didn't know he was. Because I didn't know what amillennialism was.

But he used to say, I think Satan has been loosed. I wasn't quite sure how his eschatology was playing out there. Because I only knew of dispensationalism.

But I realize now, since I became amillennial, oh, I know what he's talking about. The little season at the end. He thinks it's now.

And he thought it had begun in the middle 1800s. His evidence was that before the middle 1800s, there was no technology whatsoever except basic animal power, man power, wind power, water power. Basically, if man wanted to do any work, he had his own muscles, his animal's muscles, or any way he might be able to harvest the wind or running water, and he could do some work.

But in the 1800s, we began to have steam power. And beyond that, it rapidly progressed. We have now internal combustion engines.

Then we had jet engines. And then we have flying machines. And we have then atomic power and all this kind of stuff.

And so it's like all of a sudden, after 6,000 years of man having nothing but animal power and his own strength, nothing changed for humanity for 6,000 years in this respect. And then suddenly, you know, 150 years ago, suddenly everything changes, and it changes like gangbusters. And now we can go to the moon, and we can fly around the world, and they say now we'll be able to fly to England from New York in an hour and things like that by the new jets.

You know, wow, how quickly things have changed. And my friend, whose name is Fred Bopp, he's now deceased, he thought that that all happened because Satan was loosed and this technology was Satan's way of trying to bring the human race to its ultimate self-destruction. Interesting theory.

But when I heard his theory, I thought, well, you know, something else happened in the middle 1800s too. The church began to be invaded by a lot of cults. The Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian science, they all popped up in the mid-1980s.

So did communism, Marxism. So did Freudianism. So did evolution, came up at that time.

So did dispensationalism, interestingly enough. But the point is, many philosophies that were a deception to the Christian world, to the church, which had never held sway, suddenly popped up like dandelions in a meadow in this period of time. So I thought, well, this guy might have something.

I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm inclined to think not, but I'm also inclined to consider maybe.

150 years is a little while compared to 1,000 years or 2,000 years. And so the little while might be longer than a few years, but on the other hand, I believe that it is mainly characterized by events much more challenging to the church than we have experienced yet because the church still is going out and winning nations. China, Korea, many parts of Africa and South America are just turning to Christ by the millions.

And therefore, I think Satan is still, in the sense that Revelation 20 talks about, probably still bound. And I believe that the besieging of the beloved city must speak of circumstances more restrictive to the church than we have at this present time. And when that happens, well, it looks like it'll be a rough time, but not for good because the church is never conquered, really.

It seems to be, but fire from heaven comes down. And Paul says it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you rest with us when the Lord shall come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that do not know God and don't obey the gospel. That, I believe, is the explanation of Revelation 20 from the rest of Scripture, which is what, of course, we need if we're going to understand anything in Revelation.

And so we take our break, somewhat belatedly.