It's the End of the Road!

The Book that Promises a Blessing!

A study of the book of Revelation

by Pastor Frank Rice

Revelation 20:7-15

Maybe you’ve used that phrase or at least heard it used by someone. (Was it blurted out in an old cowboy movie?) I’m assuming it means someone is in big trouble and this is his final resting place! Whatever it means it doesn’t sound like a positive experience to be anticipated! My guess is that anyone who is threatened by these words would try to avoid it at all costs!

Man’s eternal destiny hangs on his response to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The eternal destiny of your family, friends, associates, and neighbors may hang on your readiness to share Jesus with them.

 

❖      Our infinitely wise and sovereign God uses Satan to accomplish His purposes (vv. 7-9)!

1. God will release Satan from his 1,000-year imprisonment. This is not a “jail-break!” It is intentional and purposeful on His part!
2. BTW, “The earliest church fathers believed in a literal, future, thousand-year reign of Christ.” (Keener)
3. God will use Satan to foment unrest, deceive rebel nations, and gather them together from the four corners of the earth. The text rests on regathering and rebellion (Ezekiel 37, 38-39). “The vision here interprets God and Magog as symbols of all the nations gathered together in opposition to Christ and His followers.” (Osborne)
4. God will allow reluctantly submissive nations to show their true colors! They’ve submitted to Messiah’s iron-rod government, and now see and seize an opportunity to free themselves!
5. God will allow these rebel nations to surround His beloved city, Jerusalem, and threaten her very existence! (Far-fetched?)
6. God will send down fire (judgment metaphor?) to utterly wipe His enemies and the enemies of His people off the earth!

 

❖      Every human who participates in this insurrection has harbored hatred and resentment for Israel and her Messiah!

1. Those living at the end of the 1,000 years will have had unimaginable opportunities to experience the righteous reign of Messiah and come to faith in Him.
2. They had enjoyed a just government, no satanic interference, and a perfect environment. Many conformed outwardly to Messiah’s rule, but inwardly resented Him.  Now they revolt.
3. Inner transformation trumps outward conformity. Those who merely conformed had never personally experienced the grace of God in Christ. Their natures had never been transformed.

 

❖      Our infinitely sovereign and powerful God will once for all time dispose of the devil (v. 10)!

1. That deceiver will be cast into the same lake of fiery sulfur where his two cronies were thrown 1,000 years earlier (19:20).
2. The terrible trio will suffer eternal torment for their wholesale and rampant wickedness.
3. “No prophetic message would be complete without a word about Satan's final destiny. The archenemy of our souls, the deceiver, the slanderer, the father of lies, the murderer, the one who blinds the minds of unbelievers, the god of this age, the evil spirit working in the sons of disobedience, the prince of the power of the air, the angel of the bottomless pit, will be "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone."
4. The devil and his cronies deserve it, and the justice of God demands it (Matt. 25:41)!

 

❖      Jesus Christ Himself sits on the throne of judgment (v. 11)! “All are agreed that this will occur at the end of history.” (Osborne)

1. All judgment is given to the Son (John 5:22). The world, in unbelief, sat in judgment on Him, condemning the innocent, sinless Son of God to die. He now sits in judgment on them!
2. He is described as sitting and sovereign. The white throne symbolizes absolute purity, holiness, and justice. The rainbow which appeared earlier, a symbol of God’s mercy, is absent.
3. There is something overwhelmingly ominous about the earthand the heavenreceding into oblivion! Creation itself flees at the presence of God!

 

❖      Unrepentant sinners from the beginning of time are described as standing before Him awaiting final judgment (vv. 12-15)!

1. The dead, from the lowliest earthlings to the highest, stand silently as they await the Judge’s verdict (v. 11).
2. Before Him is a vast array of books, containing abundant evidence of their unrepentant and unregenerate lives, which damns them for eternity (v. 12a). (They remain dead in their sins.)

“Works are an unmistakable evidence of the loyalty of the heart; they express either belief or unbelief, faithfulness or unfaithfulness.” (Johnson)

“Even persons who have been counted to be good and noble by their counterparts on earth are in their hearts rebellious against God.” (Patterson)

3. Before Him is another Book (v. 12b), a register of those who are alive in Christ. In it are recorded the names of all who have by faith repented of sin and trusted Messiah for salvation.
4. When a man trusts Christ as Savior he is justified! His name and the record of his sinful past are removed from these books. His name is then placed in The Book of Life.  When a man is justified by faith his works demonstrate his new life!
5. The names of the dead do not appear in this Book. They and all that pertains to them will be forever removed from the realm of God and life, and cast into the lake of fire (vv. 13a, 14-15).
6. These are sent into eternal punishment.  Death and Hades is thrown into the lake of fire. “And since no one was found written in the Book of Life, each one was cast into the Lake of Fire.”

There are basically four views on Hell:

The metaphorical view concedes the reality of hell but insists the Bible is not to be taken literally. Thus Jesus, who preached extensively on hell, was “messing with us.”

The purgatorial view insists that though all will suffer punishment and purging for sins, many will escape to heaven. So Jesus’ “It is finished!” shouldn’t be taken seriously!

The conditional view lessens the severity of eternal punishment by promoting universalism or annihilationism. Thus, the holiness of God is violated and man’s sin is trivialized.

The literal view holds that punishment is eternal and punitive, not redemptive. It takes the Bible at face value. No one delights in the doctrine of eternal punishment, but neither can we deny it.

It seems that someone who is interested in proving that there is no hell, generally has a personal reason for doing so!

 

7. Each person will be dealt with individually (v. 13b). There will be no mistakes or miscarriages of justice.

 

There will be a final and eternal solution to wickedness, when the devil, his cronies, and all who have rejected God’s grace in Christ are forever removed from the scene.

Heaven is real. So is hell.