The Beginning of the Beginning

[0:00] All right, please turn with me to the 19th chapter of Revelation. That's the 19th chapter of Revelation.

[0:16] We are, I've titled this sermon, The Beginning of the Beginning. It is what comes after and what goes on for eternity, what we see and hear described in these following chapters.

[0:34] If you've been with us from the beginning, you know it's the time when the seals are open, the trumpets have sounded, the bowls have all been poured out, Satan and his minions are defeated, and God's judgment is about to be dispensed.

[0:56] What is life going to be like? My hope and prayer for you that just during this study of Revelation, that you've come to understand the overall forest rather than the trees, but I think by understanding the forest, it will help us determine and understand the great glorious truth that this indeed is a book about Jesus.

[1:27] Chapter 1 tells us that it is the apocalypse, the revelation, which is the revealing of Jesus Christ.

[1:38] And we see his heart more and more, deeper and deeper, as we move through the text that even during some insane, horrifying times on earth and times of judgment for those who stood against and stand against Jesus, we still see an incredible consistency of his character, of his holiness, of his justice, of his mercy.

[2:08] And more important, just this desire for people to come to him, to experience the fullness and freedom of life that only happens in Jesus Christ.

[2:21] Everything else is just false worship, false faith, false religion, in order to take away glory that is rightfully due to him.

[2:34] It's interesting, just as I've been reading and listening to other preachers preach on this book, so often they are wrong simply because they've moved the focus of the text to man and us as opposed to Jesus Christ himself.

[2:55] And I think that is the greatest mistake that anybody can make when it comes to try to understand this book. It is about Jesus.

[3:06] And we are blessed when we read these words aloud. That is the promise of God that he gives to no other book in the entire Bible.

[3:18] Revelation is the only one that simply states in verse 3, chapter 1, blessed is he who reads the words aloud. Before I go any further, just let's pray.

[3:28] As we dive into these last chapters, we're going to be covering a lot of material. I'll probably speak a little bit quicker than normal because I've got more words to say in the allotted amount of time to conclude this study and kind of wrap it up with a nice big red ribbon bow on it.

[3:48] So let's go to him. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we've got much on our minds. So Father, just thinking our brothers and sisters in Christ who are just who are suffering through just time, the effects of sin in this world, whether it be through death or just through people being prejudicial, through hurt and pain that others have experienced in this world.

[4:11] Father, as we are going to read that you are going to make all things right, you are going to wipe away every tear. Father, there is going to be perfect judgment that is going to come.

[4:23] There is going to be perfect salvation that exists here on earth. There will be perfect joy, perfect celebration, perfect worship.

[4:37] It's not possible outside of you for you are the only one who can bring this to be. Father, just as I go over this incredible amount of material, I pray that you'll keep my voice strong, my mind clear, that you'll give us the ability to hear and understand the points that you desire us to hear and understand, oh Father.

[5:04] We thank you for this great book. I know I rejoice just at the amount of conversations I've been able to have with other friends, pastors, scholars, just dealing with some of the intricacies and really coming away with such a greater understanding of you.

[5:22] May it be for the saints that gather here at Squamish Baptist Church. We ask these things in your name. Amen. Last week we covered the end of the end, the end of the judgments.

[5:39] Going back to Revelation 16, 17, John writes, the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying, it is done.

[6:02] There was flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on earth. So great was that earthquake.

[6:14] It is done. We know those words. Those words were echoed thousand years ago when Jesus Christ on the cross, when he paid for our sins, that we could come before this great throne room into the temple unblemished because Jesus paid the price for our sins and as he accepted the wrath of God which was meant for us poured out on him, he said, it is done.

[6:50] This is God, the Father, from the temple in the throne room saying, it is done. What was the response? Well, this is what chapter 19 tells us.

[7:04] There was celebration in worship. So let's take a look at chapter 19. After this, I heard what seemed to be a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God for his judgments are true and just for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her blood of his servants.

[7:41] Once more, they cried out, hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever and he's referring to the false worship, the false gods that have existed ever since Genesis when Satan rose to try to take away the rightful honor, glory, and worship that is due God alone that foolish man had replaced with idols, the sun, and rocks.

[8:14] And we fought for those things. Yet, God breaks it all.

[8:24] verse 4, and the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne saying, amen, hallelujah, and from the throne came a voice saying, praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.

[8:50] this is the victory. It's done. It is perfect salvation, perfect justice, perfect righteousness is here.

[9:04] There is no more rebellion. The only thing before us is God's perfect sovereign plan. Within that plan is perfect harmony between us, man, and God himself.

[9:22] In fact, later we will read, we will walk. He will allow us to see him in glory. Verses 6 and 9, it says, then I heard what seemed to be a voice of great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out.

[9:45] This is in verse 6. Hallelujah! For the Lord, our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

[10:03] It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

[10:13] And in verse 9, and the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

[10:25] And he said to me, these are the true words of God. Then I fell down at the feet to worship him, but he said to me, you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

[10:39] Worship God. for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The bride is us.

[10:51] The bride is those who have been made perfect by the perfect blood of the Lamb. He is the one who has prepared us.

[11:02] These are the saints, the multitude of saints who existed through Old Testament times and New Testament times. We will be in heaven just waiting for this time to end when all the saints are perfectly gathered in heaven.

[11:19] When God has this perfect salvation, perfect righteousness, perfect sovereignty. and we are waiting to be united in our culture.

[11:32] The bride waits or the groom waits at the front of the church for his glorious beautiful bride to appear. But in Scripture in this context, it is we who have been made perfect by God wearing the fine linen that he paid for with his precious blood.

[11:54] And we wait for our groom to take us in to his tent. That is the picture here.

[12:06] We see this chapter 11 verse or chapter 19 verse 11. Then I saw heaven and opened and behold a white horse.

[12:20] The one sitting on it is 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.

[12:35] And he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which is called is the word of God.

[12:50] Goes back right? John 1 1 when he was called the flesh has come and is the word of God and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure were following on white horses.

[13:06] 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 wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the almighty on his robes and on his thigh has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

[13:32] This is our groom coming for the wedding feast. This is the end. These are the one people who are waiting for him.

[13:49] Now if you've been following us up to this point you know something has to happen. And that's what we're going to talk about in the following chapters these end chapters.

[14:06] The first thing that needs to happen is although Satan has been defeated his minions and those who stand apart from God or against God judgment has to come.

[14:20] A sentence needs to happen. So we're going to read and we're going to see in the text we're going to see three separate judgments. We're first going to see against those who were used by Satan against God are going to be judged.

[14:37] Chapter 20 it's going to be the judgment that God has for Satan and then the other part of chapter 20 it is the great white throne of judgment that he describes where all judgment comes against everyone who has lived and died.

[14:59] God's rightful judgment will come. So that's the first thing. We also know that we have an earth that is beaten battered and bruised.

[15:10] Judgments earthquakes hails it has been damaged so God is going to give us a new creation a new heaven and a new earth that is what is going to be described in verse 21 and then he ends the book of Revelation 22 with a bit of a scenery of what heaven is like and John concludes the text with encouraging words to the saints so we're going to look at the judgment that God has for those who stood against them we're going to look at what new creation is and we're going to see what a taste of heaven and we're going to see God's wonderful promises to his saints that are living at that time under persecution now before I go any further into this when I began this sermon series in my introduction

[16:11] I shared with you that there is three divergent views within Christianity and how to interpret end times all three of these positions are based on Revelation 20 which is the chapter that outlines the specific sentencing and judgment that comes against Satan himself the great dragon now as you all know I'm going to read you our church statement of faith simply says we believe that Jesus Christ will return personally we've just read that he's coming down on that white horse and he's coming boldly and gloriously I can't think of anything more boldly and gloriously what we just read just as he promised and his apostles affirmed in the end Christ will raise from the dead all who have ever lived and he will declare

[17:15] God's perfect judgment concerning every person that's what we're going to read in the second part of chapter 19 those those those those those that come before the great white throne of judgment those who have been saved will live eternally in the perfect renewed creation which we read in 21 and those who have been unrepentant will exist eternally in the conscious punishment of hell to be a part of orthodox Christianity these are the things that you need to subscribe to to have a Christian biblical faith the division that I spoke to you about in the first introductory sermon of revelation talked about three positions on revelation 20 they're called the premillennial position the post millennial position and the amillennial position and I'm quite certain we have people at this church that have all three of those viewpoints or one of those three of those viewpoints or what tends to be more popular is what's called the pan millennial viewpoint which essentially is however it pans out is okay with me all right that by the way is not the right biblical position to have but that's okay so what I want to do is I want to save chapter 20 for the end of the sermon because that has the greater point of discussion so what I'm going to be reading is we're going to start off in chapter 19 we're going to skip part of chapter 20 go into the second half of chapter 20 go to 21 and 22 and then

[19:03] I will jump back to chapter 20 I think this is the most easiest and efficient way to handle the problem all right so I hope you're okay with that because that's what we're doing and I know you're all nodding at home all right so the first thing God has to do is he needs to judge and give sentence to those who stood against him so take a look at Revelation 19 to 21 so this is John describing the judgment against those let's call the minions those other powers that Satan used to sway hurt damage God's people to keep people away from God so verse 19 and he says and I saw the beast and we talked about the great beast the little beast the little beast is called also known as the prophet we saw a false economic system and a false religious system so

[20:07] John is writing and I saw the beast 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 that is what we just read 19 and the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image those two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse and all the birds were gorged with their flesh the reality is there has never been any doubt that this is going to happen it's interesting when we even when we read the scriptures there's so very little attention given to what these battles were like we even learned last week just the angels they just threw satan out of heaven boom it's done it said there was a great battle but it's not like there was any question to who would be victorious so even at this whole wedding ceremony

[21:27] Jesus is coming in the first thing he's just cleaning house so we have that first judgment those are the minions that served with satan revelation 20 is the judgment and sentencing to satan and there's a little bit of a hitch in there so that's why we're going to come back and go to that return to it and then we see the third judgment and sentencing which is found in revelations 20 turn with me to verse 11 and then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it from his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found from them for them and I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were opened then another book was opened which is the book of life and the book of dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done and the sea gave up the dead who were in it death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them 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 this is the second death the lake of fire and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life he was thrown into the lake of fire this my friends is total final justice just look at the completeness the detail given that every soul who's ever existed from time began no matter where they were we see the ones before time in hell even the dead that the sea took will all be taken up and will all brought before both those rightfully following

[23:33] God and wrongly thinking they were or opposing him the good and the bad those whose names have been redeemed by Jesus are placed in the book of life this is the final judgment and it's coming for us doesn't matter what we do unless we live a life that is meant to give that is to give glory and honor to the Father it ends in this fiery lake that is why Jesus came 2000 years ago so our lives could be written in the Lamb's book of life that we could know true and utter salvation to have perfect peace with God to be totally forgiven no matter what time we're from what family we're from what sins we have done those who've been redeemed are totally redeemed this is our wedding we wait there with him and what does he bring us this is chapter 21 it says then

[24:57] I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more and I saw the holy city new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away amen this is this is perfect salvation the perfect relationship we are sin free we can put our eyes on the indescribable one who sits on the throne he knows us we know him it's incredible in chapter 22

[26:17] John gives us his final remarks and words of encouragement to the saints under persecution verse 1 of chapter 22 then the angel showed me the river of the water of life bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city also on either side of the river the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations no longer will there be anything accursed but the throne of God and the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more they will need no lamp no light of lamp or sun for the

[27:27] Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever that is the picture of heaven that John presents to us through his dreams we don't know what all the symbolism is but there's certain things that we do not need to know the symbolism to understand God reigns God perfectly reigns and because God perfectly reigns there's perfect justice there's perfect righteousness there is no pain there is no mourning there is just joy forevermore in the presence of the ruling God it's incredible it seems as if there is an economy of words being used here even

[28:29] Paul who ascended into the third heaven did not share was not given permission enough to share what he saw how great and glorious it is to be in God's presence that is for every believer who has ever lived and then there's almost this switch there's a difference in the tone it's almost if John has been delivered from this incredible vision the incredible view of heaven and he's brought back down to earth and he says and he said to me and now he's he's writing these words for the people the church his loved ones the beloved ones those he died on the cross for and he has these incredible words of encouragement these words are trustworthy and true and the

[29:38] Lord God the God of the spirits of the prophets has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place and he said and behold I am coming soon blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book behold I am coming soon bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done I am the alpha and the omega the first and the last the beginning and the end blessed are those who wash the robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates outside are the dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and adulterers and everyone who loves and practices falsehood verse 16

[30:39] I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches I am the root and the descendant of David the bright morning star the spear of the bride say come and let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come let the one who desires take the water of life without price I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book if anyone adds to them God will add to them the plagues described in this book and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of the prophecy God will take away his share in the tree of life and the holy city which are described in this book who testifies to these things says surely I am coming soon amen come

[31:39] Lord Jesus and the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all amen that is the end the trumpets have all sounded the bowls have been poured out the plagues have been used by God to break man's utter will judgment comes against Satan and his minions man has to answer for his disbelief those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord as his own personal savior are welcomed into the presence of God we have this very incredible yet limited description but there is a new earth a new heaven that is coming for us God's perfect peace now what's interesting is if that was how it was all described it's a perfect ending but as I stated earlier there is this hitch that occurs in chapter 20 and chapter 20 has been mystifying bothering causing much debate with scholars some even choosing to ignore it saying well it's only half a chapter how much stock should we pay to it comes up now it is an important chapter and I'm going to explain to you why you're also going to see as

[33:38] I read it you're going to see that there's interpretational issues that come up to the point that some want to over symbolize it and some people don't symbolize it enough so let's look back at chapter 20 some of these things are going to become clear as day as soon as we read them so as you notice with the beast and the prophet and the kings kings were all killed that stood against God the beast the prophet were thrown into the lake of fire to be done with now he turns to Satan let's take a look at chapter 20 verse 1 then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain and he seized the dragon that ancient serpent who is the devil and

[34:43] Satan and bound him for a thousand years years all right you're going to see this word this phrase a thousand years five more times so when I was speaking to you about the pre millennial position that millennial is referring to these thousand years so the pre millennial position there's a post millennial position in an all millennial position and if you want the charts on that they're actually uploaded on our website I'll give you a brief description in a couple of minutes but this is what they're pertaining to this idea of a thousand years so it says he seized the dragon that ancient serpent who was the devil and satan and bound him for a thousand years verse three and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him why so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended after then he must be released for a little while verse four then

[36:04] 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 and for the word of God and those who had not worshipped 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 a thousand years the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended this is the first resurrection blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such the second death has no power for they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for a thousand years and now we move on to verse seven and when the thousand years are ended

[37:11] Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth gag and Magog to gather them for battle their number is like the sand of the sea and they marched up from the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city but fire came down from heaven and consumed them and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever all right notice that's completely different than when he talks about the other judgments there's this play that needs to happen with Satan so just to give you a quick brief overview for you Satan is going to be bound up for a thousand years and one of the reasons that is stated is so that he does not deceive the nations and during that time there will be peace on earth

[38:20] Jesus Christ is ruling martyred the saints and who and we're going to talk about this a little bit there was people who weren't dead through the last judgments that were saved Christians were saved and they come into the millennial kingdom okay and it said it is believed at that time that those believers who survived the tribulation time who did not worship the beast nor received their mark so if you're not vaccinated you can serve with Jesus Christ during the tribulation or during the thousand years that's a joke I know it doesn't translate on video but there it is all right and don't forget there was a great many people saved during tribulation we read about the 144 thousand witnesses plus the two great witnesses and we saw the mercy of God over time calling out to the people repent repent every time before God was going to unleash a judgment so it's talking about those people who had died as believers during the tribulation are brought to life they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years so that rest of the dead in verse five that did not come to life until the thousand years were ended so those those are the people who died before the tribulation could be us our grandparents our ancestors all the people who died in the Old

[40:04] Testament they are to be resurrected after that thousand years so but what's interesting is for some reason God releases Satan after this short period of time and he's given this ability or he has the ability to sway the nations and even though there's been this perfect thousand years of God's perfect reign there's still some who don't believe and they will be swayed they will be tricked they will be fooled by Satan to come against them and what does it say fire will come down devour them and it's done verse 10 and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and false prophet were and they will be tormented night and day okay a person who has a pre millennial position believes that thousand years that

[41:15] Jesus Christ comes comes before that description of the thousand years they believe that Jesus Christ comes at that time just as I believe the text says reigns through that thousand years someone who has a post-millennial position believes that the church itself overcome so they kind of interpret the timeline of tribulation differently than what's been described these last couple weeks but they believe that's a whole other issue I didn't want to get into so what they they believe that through the church age through the gospel the witness of the church governments become Christian governments more and more people get saved and it ushers in this kingdom of righteousness then Jesus appears at the end of that tribulation and then that's when all the resurrection of the dead the great white throne happens the all mill position believes the millennial period has been ongoing roughly since

[42:25] AD 70 they interpret a thousand years as being a long time so they just believe at some point Jesus is coming back at that time everybody is resurrected before the great white throne of judgment and sets up heaven so the debate is what to do about this chapter if you have specific questions into this I'd love to answer them for you I don't want to get into all of this but a couple things I want to make you aware of first of all our church statement doesn't divide between those three positions all three of those positions I as stated earlier are believed by many different sound good godly biblical teachers scholars Christians all that sort of thing they all believe that Jesus is coming again he's going to judge the living of the dead and there's heaven and hell what this is it's a debate about the timing of it however today

[43:42] I want to present to you I believe in the pre-mill position and I'm going to explain to you why and three reasons and I'm going to explain why this text exists in my mind trust me I'm not an expert on this if I were I'd write a book and it'd be a best-selling book so I don't have all the answers but I am coming to this I hopefully in a humble way I'm not here to argue why the other positions are wrong it's kind of difficult in this type of setting but I hope this will help you with three questions okay so the first question that happens is why does this thousand years thing have to happen like why does he throw that hitch in that's the first question we want to ask something the answer is something significant has to happen during that thousand year period my argument my belief is that is the time period upon which

[44:52] God answers all the promises to the Jews in the Old Testament if you know anything about the covenants or the promises that God made to Abraham Isaac and Jacob which he repeated which is called the Abrahamic covenant then he repeated the certain other promise to David which is called the new covenant and Jeremiah contains what is called the new covenant in Jeremiah 31 there are certain promises that were made to Jews the Jewish nation at that time that had to happen one that there would be a place where they sat thrown where they ruled with Jesus that he is the manifestation of David he's the fulfillment of the Davidic kingship so that has to happen I believe that

[45:53] God did not do away with his promises to Israel in the Old Testament now if you have a post mill or an ah mill position your process is when Jesus Christ came the Israel became the church it was just one people that is a position called supersessionism and I know it's a big word but it means that the church the Gentiles as they had faith in Jesus Christ and now that faith was placed in Jesus Christ they superseded Israel and kind of absorbed all the blessings and so nothing about Israel even factors into their theology so when you read about post mill or on mill theology very little references given to Israel the nation of Israel or the history of Israel a lot of the people who make a big to do about

[46:56] Israel are in the pre mill position and listen some of them they're quite crazy in their prophecies that's not the position I hold to but God being faithful always at all time to his people and this even goes into the issue of election if God elected Israel for a very specific purpose he is going to foresee them and hold them through so if you remember earlier in revelations I want to say revelation chapter seven he talked about 144 thousand preachers from the twelve tribes of Israel so those were Jews during this late tribulation time period other positions are going to say there's something else there they symbolize someone else I try to be as literal as possible if you read your Old Testament even every all mill scholar and post mill scholar will tell you if you read the promises made to

[48:05] Israel in a literal meaning you have to be pre millennial so you have to believe they are real the reason they don't take a literal reading is they believe there's allegory and they spiritualize certain things there's other hermeneutical which is the science art of studying your Bible or involved there but I take what's called the literal historical grammatical interpretation of scripture what I mean is when I pick up Leviticus Leviticus and I read it I have to try to interpret it what would those words have meant to the people that it was written to what was the intent of the author you have to go into that literal place I don't believe the New Testament rewrites the old okay so that thousand years is simply for the Jewish nation I believe that is what

[49:06] God's sole intended purpose so that's the question of why the thousand years I know I'm probably about as clear as mud on this but I'm going to do my best for you to understand there you go the second point is it says a thousand years a mill post mill will argue that means a long period of time the problem with that is one thousand years is listed six times there's a significance to it and when you use biblical symbolism like you noticed that Satan was called the dragon you know what it's referring to there's actually Greek words which mean a long time or an extended period time or a time where things are supposed to happen a specific time he would have used those words but instead we even see him use those other words in Revelation he uses a thousand words six times and

[50:10] I believe he literally means I believe when he repeats that word over and over and over there has to be a specific meaning and usually scripture will tell us what that meeting is supposed to be as we've read Revelation we understand there's a lot of words we don't understand but it's really not as much as it's kind of made out to be the message is quite simple in the book of Revelation it's prophecy it's apocalyptic in its nature but it's still prophecy and words still have meaning and we'll notice a lot of the words that John used he told us what they meant like I said the dragon sometimes

[51:15] John said I saw things that appeared to be those weren't supposed to be symbols those were John using to the best of his ability to describe what he saw in heaven think of its language it was interesting I was just watching a story of a North Korean defector and they were doing an interview and it was interesting because the defector someone asked them about love about and the defector said we were only taught to love the leader we had no word or concept to how to love our mother or love our father or love our kids they never had any of those type of words that were available to them so it was very hard to describe the idea of empathy there was no word to describe it was quite interesting to hear this story and

[52:27] I'm sure John faced that same idea so sometimes you read some of the Christian authors they're adding symbolism where God is not intending symbolism even though it might say grasshopper that looks like a scorpion it could be a grasshopper that looks like a scorpion we don't know so we need to be careful when it comes to biblical interpretation and assigning symbolism to everything we don't understand and here's the other mistake guys that everyone makes everybody tries to interpret through their own theological lens and I know when we have a theological box it helps us see better we all do it we're all guilty of it but sometimes you have to step aside you have to read other people's positions and see if their critique is right and as I said when I first began to have any position of the Christian faith that is dogmatically based on revelation

[53:30] I believe is a completely foolish position to have so anyway getting back to the thousand years I believe there are literal thousand years I see no reason why that it's offered in the text that it cannot be and the third reason is to ask yourself got my notes backwards here is take a look at verse three they threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer the other positions believe that when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross Satan has been thrown into this pit and to this day he's in this pit and he's only going to have that final judgment at the end and I know we're not supposed to look at today defined Bible through what we see in our culture but I think we can do this through all time and we could be in the 1500s the 1400s the 1200s 400

[54:35] AD and we would still not be able to see that Satan wasn't bound because we still see evil we see nation deceiving one another causing war and all those type of things so my point is I believe that Satan is around alive today roaring causing trouble and when he's in that pit he's completely locked away there will not happen so anyway like I said if I had all the answers for you I'd write a best selling book I'm still learning and growing in my understanding um this is kind of a hard sermon to land the plane on so anyhow the point is I believe there's significance to Revelation 20 I believe it is about Israel I believe it's about keeping his word to his people as much as we are his people today he had a plan that is the time that he restores them to their proper position on earth and then after we all go in equal into the new heaven and new earth because we are all

[55:45] God's children so for me it keeps all those earlier promises of God because God is a God of his word and that's who God is and it's amazing if you have any other questions you can just write me bk at squamish baptist dot org on these issues I'm not here to sway you one way or the other but those are simply the reasons why I hold to this position this is where my hope is this is what helps me read my book of revelation when I read it I do see the reality but I'm going to talk to you about one knock that my position gets and I've actually been dealing with different people I'm saying hey tell me your attacks or what you think my position fails on and one that somewhat comes out is you preach a system where the church escapes judgment so that you're preaching this point of view that man just needs to hide out until

[56:52] Jesus Christ takes us away in the rapture you guys who've been under my ministry now for three years know that I have never preached that aberrant theology whatsoever if I believe that Jesus Christ is coming tomorrow I don't want to hide I want to encourage you to be bold just like today when we heard about what's going on with the rock and people who are being aggressive against Christianity this is our time to rise up and speak truth I am not talking about being bold but not crude or argumentative it is time to show the love of Christ in a way that displays that Jesus Christ is real we are to continue making disciples of all men from all nations and baptizing them in the name of God all right let's pray to conclude this sermon there's a lot here in this last sermon

[57:57] I just pray it doesn't take away from the other great incredible truths that you have for us to father pray that we don't get caught up with our own system and have that system somehow take away from the truths which are so clearly connected to us through your word found in here in revelational father I do I do believe that there's certain words here are to be truth and that's how we're supposed to take them father I rejoice that you are coming back to make things right I do not believe we will ever do that I believe that we need you here I believe we need you here to defeat the enemy to defeat those who are against you father I long for the day when we can be with one another proclaiming hallelujah and all glory to you the groom who has conquered all that all glory goes to you forgive me father if

[58:57] I've added to the confusion or taught something that is not what you said here that I've come to wrong conclusions in the Bible study I pray that you would make those specifically make me specifically aware of those things to repent those things and to correct those things father I want to come humbly before you reading this book not being afraid of this book but understanding the purpose of this book which is to reveal you give you thanks on this Sunday most holy and precious name amen to you next to this you