Revelation #34 Revelation 20:7-15 (MSG) End Times: The Final Purge
Revelation #34 Revelation 20:7-15 (MSG) End Times: The Final
Purge
We
don’t have to concern ourselves with picking a position in our attempts to
interpret the millennium. Forget Pre, Post, A, and Pan millenniums. The truth
is that Jesus reigns right now (Ephesians 1:20-21). The Dragon and its henchmen
are defeated right now (Revelation 12:11). That Jesus reigns right now is the
reason believers refused to recant their faith on the penalty of death, they
were not hoping for some future reign but bet their lives on a current
spiritual reality. Jesus is Lord, now. “John [is] not drawing back a curtain to
allow his readers to peer into the future, rather he [is] drawing back a
curtain to show the spiritual realities behind the political and economic
facades of [the] current age…
( Christ's Millennial Reign – Future Hope or Present
Reality?,
https://prophecytoday.uk/study/teaching-articles/item/2532-christ-s-millennial-reign-future-hope-or-present-reality.html
, April 13, 2024). The millennium is simply a way of communicating that
now is the time of Christ’s reign.
The
Dragon, that old Snake, the Devil Satan itself has been locked in the Abyss for
1000 years. John continues:
Revelation
20:7-10 (MSG)
7 When
the thousand years are up, Satan will be let loose from his cell, and will
launch again his old work of deceiving the nations, searching out victims in
every nook and cranny of earth, even Gog and Magog! He'll talk them into going
to war and will gather a huge army, millions strong. They'll stream across the
earth, surround and lay siege to the camp of God's holy people, the Beloved
City. They'll no sooner get there than fire will pour out of Heaven and burn
them up. The Devil who deceived them will be hurled into Lake Fire and
Brimstone, joining the Beast and False Prophet, the three in torment around the
clock for ages without end.
This
seems so weird. Why let the villain out
of its prison? The answer lies in
Satan’s original job description. God created angels to handle different tasks. In the book of Job, the angels are presenting themselves before
God, reporting on their activities.
Satan is among them. It appears Satan’s job was to discover wrong
behavior among humans and report it. Satan is the accuser, that brings charges
up on people before God, kind of like a District Attorney. The job of the DA is
to investigate charges, present a case against the suspected lawbreaker, and
recommend a sentence, a punishment that fits the crime. Allowing a little speculation, at some time,
Satan quit the job, frustrated that God was not taking action against these
wrongdoers. So, it rebelled. Speculating
further, imagine Satan saying “God won’t punish these criminals, I will.” “God
is not doing His job in keeping the creation holy.” “So, I am going to take
matters into my own hands.” Hear the pride? Moving out of speculation, Satan’s
job is to roam the earth seeking out those not aligned with God’s will and
accusing them of their crime before the throne of God. Satan is very good at its job, with years of
experience. Anyway, after being shut
away, it is now set loose once again, this time, unwittingly, to be the
refining process that separates the faithful from the rest. Satan’s deceptions will pull all those who
can be pulled from their fidelity to Christ into one last attempt to overthrow
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is
allowing Satan to cull the flock of the blemished. The result is that no
charges can be brought up against the faithful. After Satan’s work, it is clear
that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1, Wright, p.
131).
Ezekiel
38:21-23 (MSG)
I'll
order all-out war against you, Gog—Decree of God, the Master—Gog killing Gog on
all the mountains of Israel. I'll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and
massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your
mobs of troops and people. " 'I'll show you how great I am, how holy I am.
I'll make myself known all over the world. Then you'll realize that I am God.'
As soon
as its job is done, Satan is thrown into the Lake of Fire, the same place as
the Beast and the False Prophet. Instead of fire and brimstone, those mental
pictures we have of Hell thanks to Dante’s Inferno, we are better off thinking
of this Lake of Fire as representing eternal separation from God and anything
of God. What is eternal separation from God like, it’s like being thrown alive
in a Lake of Fire. Another speculation:
God created in His image, and part of that image is His eternal being, if it
were not for the Fall, then it is not beyond reason to imagine that human
beings were designed not to experience physical death. If human beings are
eternal beings, it’s not too great a leap to think of angels as eternal
beings. God's creation in His image would also include a social aspect. God exists in a beyond-comprehension Trinity,
a social dimension. In this great leap,
we can assume the same with people and with angels. We know that people thrive in social
environments. This is one reason a sentence of solitary confinement is often
considered cruel and unusual punishment. People need people. The speculation is that the Lake of Fire
represents eternal solitary confinement. You’ve been given a glimpse of the
beauty of the Kingdom, you remember your previous freedom, and now it's gone,
truly mental torment forever and ever (Luke 16:19-31).
The
Heavenly Women, the Bride of Christ is victorious over Babylon
The
Arnion, the Lambkin is victorious over the Beast
The
Holy Spirit, the 7 Spirits of God, is victorious over the False Prophet
The One
Who Sits Upon the Throne is victorious over the Dragon.
The
instigators of rebellion have been permanently removed from harassing those who
have bent their knee to the Lordship of Christ ever again.
The
major players on “side evil” have been dealt with. Now John sees the judgment of God upon those
who aligned themselves with the Beast.
Revelation
20:11-15 (MSG)
I saw a
Great White Throne and the One Enthroned. Nothing could stand before or against
the Presence, nothing in Heaven, nothing on earth. And then I saw all the dead,
great and small, standing there—before the Throne! And books were opened. Then
another book was opened: the Book of Life. The dead were judged by what was
written in the books, and by the way they had lived. 13 Sea released its dead,
Death and Hell turned in their dead. Each man and woman was judged by the way
he or she had lived. 14 Then Death and Hell were hurled into Lake Fire. This is
the second death—Lake Fire. 15 Anyone whose name was not found inscribed in the
Book of Life was hurled into Lake Fire.
The
final judgment begins with the heaven and earth being swept away. The Message paraphrase seems to indicate that
God has no opposition in executing His judgment in Heaven or Earth. I’m fine with that understanding but the idea
of heaven and earth being swept away hints at something more. Heaven and Earth
represent the old order of existence tainted by humanity’s sin (Romans
8:19-22). In God’s final judgment, the old is swept away to make room for a new
Heaven and Earth not tarnished by sin.
Everything is made new like Eden before the Fall. There is always a
great apocalyptic cataclysm that comes with this, Peter states that the old
will go in fire, but then he adds “but we'll hardly notice. We'll be looking
the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth,
all landscaped with righteousness” (2 Peter 3:11-13 (MSG).
More on this making all things new starting with Chapter 21
Death, Hades, and the Sea give up their dead.
Many scholars teach a two-tiered resurrection, the first one for martyrs
and the second one in what we just read. We have suggested that when Jesus
returns there is one resurrection of the righteous and a transformation of
living believers. If our single resurrection assumption for those who have bent
the knee to Jesus is correct, then what John reports is a resurrection of the
rest of humanity. It just doesn’t seem right that John would call those alive
in Christ “the dead.” We can be comfortable with the notion that what John is
seeing is the judgment of those who rejected God’s invitation to enter into a
right relationship with Him.
Earlier
in our teaching we learned that what you do matters. Here we are seeing that truth played
out. The idea of the books is that your
every deed, both evil and good is written down.
Paul wrote to the Romans that God would judge according to what each
person has done (Romans 2:6). Those books contain all that you have done. For some people, the ledger will be full of
good deeds, with few acts of selfishness recorded. For some just the opposite, for most a
mixture of entries on both sides of the ledger. Certainly, if the good you’ve
done outweighs the bad you’ve done salvation will be granted. But not so.
No one is saved by their works.
Works are important, what you do matters, but there is another book, the
Book of Life. The Book of Life contains the names of everyone who bent their
knee to Christ and remained faithful, they didn’t recant and get their names
blotted out (Revelation 3:5). Symbolically the presence or absence of your name
in the Book of Life determines your eternal destiny.
Revelation
20:15 (MSG)
Anyone
whose name was not found inscribed in the Book of Life was hurled into Lake
Fire.
Death
and Hell lead the way. Our word Hell is
often confused with the Lake of Fire. Hell is a poor translation. The word Hades is more fitting. Hades is
understood to be an intermediate state between death and the final judgment.
Hades is the grave or Sheol. Death of
course is the grim reaper, the killer of the physical body. Recall Revelation 6:8 “I looked. A colorless
horse, sickly pale. Its rider was Death, and Hell was close on its heels.” It’s these two that lead the nameless into
the second death.
For humanity, the first death is the death of the physical body. The second death is eternal separation from God.
At the end of Chapter 20, nothing that would oppose the rule of God exists. Babylon, the Beast, the False Prophet, the Dragon, people who rejected the Lordship of Jesus, and even the sin-tainted creation have all been judged and dealt with. Their seductions and rebellions cease. Now is the time for the consummation of the Kingdom.
One of the interesting thoughts from Chapter 20 is that God uses Satan as a sifter that separates the heart loyal from the traitors. God is the sovereign One.
We’ve wondered why the rough, intense, and catastrophic times that those who are walking with Jesus suffered are suffering. From John’s heavenly perspective, all that turmoil and tragedy was a refining fire removing everything from within that was not worthy of citizenship in the Kingdom. Even those executed for their testimony, tortured, and beheaded for their faith, are rescued and honored.
Once again we have been reminded that what we do matters. To enter into salvation your name has to be written in the Book of Life. You must identify with Jesus for your name to be entered. You must live the no-compromise lifestyle of a disciple of Christ. In doing so we will log into the books many good works while knowing that good works are not good enough, only living the gospel is sufficient to escape judgment.
Now is the time for you to decide your eternal destiny. Grab ahold of God’s invitation to enter into a right relationship with Him. It is in and through Jesus that we believe and commit. If you have refused, your name will not be found in the Book of Life. If you have tasted the forgiveness and glory and the power of being a new creation in Christ, never stop partnering with the Holy Spirit, never, never, in thought, in words, or in deeds, recant your faith. No Lake of Fire for you. No. We are going to read John’s vision of the inheritance that awaits you.
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