Revelation 20:7-10 The Unbinding of Satan and His Ultimate Doom

Intro

How will it all end?

That’s usually what you’re asking when you start studying eschatology, and we are finally getting there today.

The Bible promises that Christ must reign until all His enemies are put under His feet (1 Cor 15:25).

And we all know the last enemy to be destroyed is death when Christ returns and raises us with new, imperishable bodies like His own spiritual body.

But what about the enemy before that enemy? The last enemy before the last enemy will be Satan himself.

And like every other enemy, Christ will crush him under His feet.

Here’s the BIG IDEA I want you walking away with from Revelation 20:7-10.

One day, Christ will cast the Devil into Hell and deliver the Church from Satan’s rage once and for all.

Revelation 20:7-10 describes what will take place right before the end. Right before Christ returns and judges the nations.

This passage tells us about the last days of human history.

Now saying that, it is not as detailed as we might like. This passage does not tell us everything or how everything will happen.

But it does tell us what we need to do.

Christ wins.

He crushed the head of the serpent on the cross, and one day He will crush His head once and for all.

Satan, our great adversary who tempted Adam and Eve and broke this world. Who rages against the people of God is doomed for destruction.

So as we look at Satan being unbound to deceive the nations once again, I don’t want you to see this passage as a defeat.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

These verses are Satan’s death throes.

The victory of Christ and the salvation of His people is never, not for even one moment, in doubt.

Christ will take that Great Dragon and throw Him into the Lake of Fire forever and ever and ever.

So let’s start with the beginning of the end. Point number 1...

I. Satan Will Be Released to Deceive the Nations

Revelation 20:7-8 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.

This will be a dark day.

John is picking up what he started back in Revelation 20:1-3.

Revelation 20:1-3 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 Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Who is Satan?

John uses four different names for Satan that describe just who he is.

He calls him the Dragon.

In Revelation the Dragon is the beast over all other beasts.

Biblically a beast is a Political ruler or government that rages against Christ and persecutes the people of God.

So by calling him the Dragon, John says that Satan is the one behind all earthly persecution who makes war on Christ by making war on His body the church.

He’s been thrown down from heaven. He can’t touch Christ, so He goes for the next best thing: Christ’s Bride.

Then John calls him that Ancient Serpent.

This takes us back to the Garden of Eden where Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin saying, “You will not surely die! You will be like gods knowing good and evil.

You don’t have to listen to God and live for His glory. You can live for yourselves. Live for whatever you think is right for you. You don’t have to worship the Creator.”

He twists God’s Word, sows false teaching, and lies to lead people away from Christ to follow the lusts and sinful desires of their heart.

But even here, there is a ring of hope because God promised that the Ancient Serpent was also the one who would have his head crushed by Jesus Christ.

Third, he is the Devil. διάβολος.

Literally the blasphemer, accuser or slanderer.

The Devil blasphemes God and accuses the children of God night and day of sin paid for by the blood of Christ.

Finally, He is Satan.

Satan is a Hebrew word that means Adversary; both of God and and His people.

Now by saying Adversary, that doesn’t mean he is equal with God. As if good and evil are fighting back and forth on a level playing field.

Satan is a creature. An angel. Someone created by God to worship Him, but he rebelled.

And in his rebellion he led a third of God’s holy angels to fall from heaven.

Revelation 12:3-4 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

This is why the Bible says Satan is the prince of demons and the god of this world.

Not that he rules the earth today. Christ said He is the One with all power and authority in heaven and on earth. Heaven is His throne and earth is His footstool.

No, Satan is the ruler of everything that is contrary to God. He is the god of sin and prince of tempters doing all that he can to wage war against God.

That’s why he’s called the great red dragon. Red in Revelation is a symbol for war and bloodshed, and that’s who Satan is; he’s the Adversary.

So make no mistake, his war is a futile war. God has given him over to delusion to accomplish His sovereign will and glorify Christ’s name.

Satan cannot, and will not win.

He is a creature infinitely below the Creator, and the armies of heaven outnumber his 2 to 1.

Now that doesn’t mean, he’s not stronger than us. Psalm 8 says angels are higher than us (Ps. 8:5).

But Christ who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4) because Jesus has bound the strong man.

Bound the Strong Man

Revelation 20:1-2 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 Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

The thousand years is nothing more than the Kingdom of Christ. And I’ve argued from Scripture, that the thousand years is not a literal thousand years but stands for the full and complete duration of Christ’s Kingdom on the earth, and that the first half of Revelation 20, this thousand years, is talking about the present church age.

John calls it the First Resurrection where the saints come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years.

This is a spiritual resurrection because Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins but God being rich in mercy made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him (that’s our resurrection) and seated us with him in the heavenly places (that’s reigning with Christ because Christ is seated on the throne).

And this thousand years began with the binding of Satan. That’s what kicked it all off. That’s the start point.

And Jesus says that happened in His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection.

Matthew 12:28-29 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Jesus’ entire ministry was binding the Strong Man.

And on the cross, He crushed the head of the serpent, and threw him into the bottomless pit, the abyss. The place of darkness and judgment and sealed it over him.

This is apocalyptic language describing how Satan was judged and sealed for judgment by the death and resurrection of Christ.

And if you look what Jesus says in Matthew 12, he gives us a definition for what the binding of Satan means.

And this is helpful for getting us over the speed bump that keeps people from believing that Satan is bound today even though Jesus used the same exact Greek word in Matthew 12 as John does in Revelation 20.

The binding of Satan does not mean that he is powerless or that he is not at work in the world today.

We see his work all over the place. He still prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Pt. 5:8).

Instead, his binding means that Jesus can now plunder his house. That all the nations no longer belong to Satan but belong to Christ, and through the gospel Christ is taking them as His own.

Satan still has strongholds, but they are all broken, waiting to be torn down through prayer, the preaching of the gospel, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And if we go back to Revelation 20, that’s exactly what John says. Christ bound Satan, verse 3, that he might not deceive the nations any longer.

As we keep reading Revelation 20, you are going to see that deceiving the nations means leading them away from Christ to try and destroy the church and snuff out the light of the gospel once and for all.

So deceiving the nations, by Revelation 20’s own definition equals leading the nations away from Christ. His binding, therefore, equals the nations coming to Christ.

And that’s exactly what Jesus said in John 12:31-32 which is written by the same author that wrote Revelation 20.

John 12:31-32 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

The binding of Satan means that Satan is absolutely powerless to destroy the church and keep the light of the gospel from going forth into all the world.

Christ was lifted up from the earth on the cross, and now He is drawing all people to Himself.

And that is Christ’s mission and work throughout the entire church age, until the thousand years come to an end.

After that, Satan must be released for a little while.

Literally a small time.

This contrasts with the 1000 years to say that the reign of Christ and the gospel’s growth and dominance in the world lasts for a long time, while Satan’s rebellion and apostasy lasts only a little while.

But when that day comes, what will happen?

Revelation 20:7-8 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.

When Satan is released, he deceives the nations once again and gathers them for battle.

But notice, he is released.

Satan doesn’t break out of his bonds, God releases him.

Why does God do this? The Bible doesn’t say. And it doesn’t tell us how this gathering will exactly take place or how long it will take.

The Bible merely says this is what happens.

And when Satan is released he comes out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, in other words, throughout the whole world all over the earth, and the Bible calls this Satanic alliance, Gog and Magog.

Gog and Magog

Against “Russia”

Gog and Magog are names taken from Ezekiels prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39.

Now as an aside, for those of you who come from a Dispensationalist or Premillennialist background.

You might have heard a particular interpretation of Gog and Magog that basically says Gog and Magog refers to Russia waging war on the nation of Israel during the Great Tribulation usually tying Gog and Magog to the Battle of Armageddon from Revelation 16.

And right now, you might have seen a lot of that talk has really ramped up with Russia doing everything they are doing so a lot of people out there are saying, “See! Its all happening. We are in the last days!”

Here’s the problem with that:

The way they get this interpretation is from Ezekiel 38:3 which says Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.

The word chief in Hebrew, is the word rosh. And so the argument goes Rosh sounds something like Russia and Meshech could be Moscow so Gog must be talking about the prince of Russia.

That is not good Bible interpretation. And it completely ignores the fact that rosh is used over 600 times in the Old Testament and just means chief or head.

So no. Russia doing what they are doing today is not a sign of the end times.

Well what does it mean?

Rebellious Nations

Gog and Magog is the spiritual name for all the nations that rebel against Christ and gather for war against God’s people.

Throughout Revelation John has a pattern of using Old Testament examples as types for what’s going on in Revelation.

The false teacher Jezebel plaguing the church of Thyatira is not the Jezebel eaten by dogs from the book of Kings.

The Babylon from Revelation is not the same Babylon from Daniel.

And in Revelation 11:8 John says Jerusalem, the great city, is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.

John uses Gog and Magog from Ezekiel 38-39, which if you pressed me I would say is the war that comes from Haman’s plot against the Jews recorded in the book of Esther, as a type, a spiritual name for this last days, Satanic alliance of the nations.

The churches in John’s day would have understood this immediately.

It was normal in Jewish thinking to talk about the sinful, rebellious nations of Psalm 2 who gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed as Gog and Magog (Chilton, Days of Vengeance, 523).

They used those names the same way we might use Hitler or Nazis to talk about evil leaders and evil nations without literally talking about Germans from the 1930s and 40s.

And in Ezekiel, Gog is the name of the chief prince, the head ruler, and Magog is the name of his people.

So I would say, Gog and Magog is the spiritual name for Satan and his people. The nations that once followed Christ, now follow Satan.

And then John tells us their number is like the sand of the sea. That is significant for two reasons.

First, that same phrase is used to talk about God’s covenant people.

God promised Abraham in Genesis 22:17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.

So Gog and Magog numbering like the sand of the sea shows the depth of their rebellion against Christ.

They have rejected Christ and made themselves the anti-covenant people of God to follow after Satan. They are gathered to him, the same word Jesus uses in Matthew 24:31 to talk about gathering His church from among the nations.

The other reason that phrase is significant, is because it guarantees the victory of God’s people.

The sand of the seashore are the same words used to describe the Canaanite nations gathering against Joshua (Joshua 11:4) and the Midianites and Amalekites gathering against Gideon (Judges 7:12).

In both instances, God fought for His people and delivered them a great victory which we are about to see happens again for the church in verses 9-10.

But before we get there, we need to answer a few burning questions you might be having about this passage.

Where?

First off, where do all these sinful and rebellious nations come from?

This was by far one of the most difficult questions I had after becoming a Postmillennialist.

The impression Revelation gives us is that when Satan is released Gog and Magog will vastly outnumber the church.

But f we believe that the gospel will be so victorious in the world that all the nations will one day become disciples of Christ...

And if we believe that no one, can lose their salvation and not even Satan himself, can snatch a believer out of Christ’s hand...

I mean if all the nations are Christian during the 1000 years, where in the world all these people come from?

Let me give you an answer.

Paul says the things that happened to Israel, so basically the Old Testament, was written down for our instruction to be an example to us (1 Cor 10:11).

All the way back in Deuteronomy, the people of God are about to go into the Promise Land.

And Deuteronomy 8:11-20 says

Deuteronomy 8:11-14 Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery...

Deuteronomy 8:17-20 Beware lest you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Well what happened?

Israel went into the Land, conquered it, had rest and blessing on every side (Joshua 21:43-45), and then Judges 2:10-12 happened.

Judges 2:10-12 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord.

One generation. One generation is all it took for Israel to abandon the Lord.

Towards the end, there will be a generation or possibly more, that will be Christian in name only, but will not love Christ.

They will love the blessings but they will not love the Lord of the blessings.

They will take it all for granted, world peace, justice, material blessings and prosperity and simply assume the blessings are there’s.

They will say in their heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” and they will be ripe for Satan’s deception.

Why do you need Christ? Its always been like this. You don’t need to worship and serve Jesus. All of these blessings are because of you, not some God named Jesus.

And in his providence, God has given us a picture of just how fast this can happen when you look at America’s moral decline over the last 80 years.

How?

But this still boggles the mind. How can this happen? How can the world, after all the blessings of Christ, just turn their back on Him?

Well the rebellion doesn’t happen all at once. Satan gathers the nations, and it takes a little while. Satan will plant doubt and reap unbelief.

The Bible calls him a roaring lion for a reason.

Did he not deceive Adam and Eve who enjoyed paradise with God in the Garden?

Did he not deceive Israel time and again even though they knew God’s promises and tasted all the blessings of the Promise Land under David and Solomon?

And most sobering of all for how great Satan’s power is to deceive the nations: Did he not deceive a third of the angels themselves who saw God, with their own eyes, in all of His glory?

Who can’t the serpent deceive? Apparently anyone but Jesus Christ, which when you stop to think about it, makes Christ’s obedience in the wilderness all that much more glorious to save us from our sins.

In fact, Jonathan Edwards said This apostasy will be most like the apostasy of the devils of any that have ever before been: for the devils apostatized, and turned enemies to Christ, though they enjoyed the light of heaven; and these will apostatize, and turn enemies to him, though they have enjoyed the light and privileges of the glorious times of the church (Jonathan Edwards, “A History of the Work of Redemption, Part VIII, The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1, Banner of Truth, 611).

And this gives us a hint as to why, God will allow this to happen.

Why?

I have a few ideas, but the best one is that this rebellion will ultimately serve to magnify the grace of Christ, and God’s power to save sinners.

Now this is clearly speculation territory, but here we go. There’s two sides of the coin.

For one, this shows us that without God’s grace we really are that sinful.

We have seen what sin and rejecting God has done to this world.

And Gog and Magog, sinful humanity, will see all of that brokenness and everything God did to fix it in sending His own Son to die on our behalf out of love for us when He had no reason to love us at all, and we will still reject Him and choose our sin.

Without God’s grace, every single one of us is another Adam looking for a chance to Fall.

By nature, without God’s grace, we are all children of wrath.

But that’s the flip side of the coin.

Gog and Magog show us just how glorious God’s love for us is in Christ, and how amazing His power to save sinners truly is.

That’s how sinful we are, and yet God still loves us?

That without His grace, God knows we would spurn His love and forsake His Name time and time and time again no matter how many blessings He poured out, and yet He still sent Jesus to die for us?

The irony of it all is that this rebellion actually shows us how great God’s grace is for us in Christ.

Truly John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Satan will be released to deceive the nations, and his release will be another testimony of the Amazing Love and Grace of Jesus Christ.

Number 2. After Satan is released and gathers Gog and Magog for battle...

II. Christ Will Deliver His Church

Revelation 20:9 And they marched up over 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.

So interestingly this verse actually makes a strong case against Premillennialism.

According to Premillennialists and Dispensationalists, at this point Christ has been reigning physically on the earth for a thousand years with His saints who received their glorified, resurrected bodies when He returned to establish His Kingdom.

Bodies that Paul says are imperishable, glorious, spiritual, and raised in power (1 Cor 15:42-44).

And now Gog and Magog march against Jerusalem, and surround Christ and His saints.

And the way Revelation presents this is that it is a dire situation. Their number is like the sand of the sea and they are gathered together for battle. They surround the people of God and the only thing that can save them is fire from heaven.

Now let me ask you, why would the One with all power and authority in heaven and on earth ever be threatened by this?

Well you might say He’s not, He’s Christ. OK. Well, why would saints who have glorified, imperishable, spiritual bodies raised in power, ever be threatened by an army no matter what size that marches against them in natural, sinful, fallen bodies?

If this were how it happened, all the saints are looking out over the walls, see the armies, and instead of being overwhelmed they would ask What are you going to do? Kill us? We can never die?

The Old Testament background for this is God working a miraculous deliverance for His people when all else seems lost.

That background does not fit and would not describe a multi-nation seige against Almighty Christ and His glorified saints.

This verse also argues against some Amillennial positions which say that the millennial Kingdom and the first resurrection refers to the saints spiritual reign with Christ in heaven which is going on throughout the entire church age.

But Satan’s doesn’t attack the saints in heaven. He attacks the saints on earth. They march up over the broad plain of the earth and surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city.

By both accounts, something else is going on in this passage. Well what is it?

To answer that we need to know what is the camp of the saints and the beloved city?

John uses these two images to describe the church, and both of these images assure the church will be protected and delivered by God.

Camp

First the camp.

The camp is a call back to Israel’s time in the wilderness.

If you’ll remember, when the Israelites made camp, God’s tabernacle was put in the middle of it and all the people of God camped around it.

God dwelled with His people.

And because of that, Israel’s camp had to be holy.

Deuteronomy 23:14 Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy.

City

Then you have the beloved city.

John has a pattern in Revelation of laying breadcrumbs that payoff later.

And in Revelation 21 we are told that this beloved city is the New Jerusalem who comes down from heaven as a Bride adorned for her husband.

The New Jerusalem, the beloved city, is none other than the Church.

And this is talking about the Church as it exists today. Not the Church of eternity because the Final Judgment hasn’t happened yet.

The New Jerusalem is not a literal city. It is the people of God in the church.

Hebrews 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. He was talking to the church.

Paul even says we are children of the Jerusalem that is from above (Gal 4:26).

So here’s what’s going on here. This is the church, faithful to Christ, which exists all throughout the world.

And they are surrounded in the sense that Gog and Magog overwhelm them. The church in that day will be hard pressed on every side with persecution and temptation to go the way of the world and abandon Christ.

That day will be so dark that it will look like Satan will finally, all over the earth, snuff out the church once and for all.

But here’s God’s promise.

They are a holy camp, and God dwells in their midst, and God will never leave them or forsake them because they are His beloved city, His own Bride.

By putting these two images together John is saying that even though the church is surrounded and hard pressed on every side, Gog and Magog will not win. God will fight for His people and deliver them from Satan’s armies.

And deliver them He does. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

The Battle is over before it even begins. God delivers His people and crushes His enemies.

This is probably even a reference to the return of Christ which would tell us Christ returns after the Millennium, not before.

In the Parable of the Weeds Jesus said that when he returns Matthew 13:41-42 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But afterwards…Matthew 13:43 the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Here’s the point. Satan will be released and He will deceive the nations and rage against the church.

But Christ will deliver His people.

Now before moving on to Satan’s ultimate doom, I want to pull out two important applications this passage has for us today.

First, we must...

Hold Fast to Christ

The nations at the four corners of the earth were led astray. They abandoned Christ and followed after Satan.

This is a call for us to persevere.

Paul says Ephesians 2:1-3 You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

We will either follow Christ or we will follow Satan. There is no middle ground.

One path leads to eternal life, the other eternal death.

Seeing the nations turn their backs on Christ after enjoying so many blessings of His Kingdom should be a warning, here and now, to hold fast to Him and not forget or abandon the Lord.

Number 2, we must...

Hold Fast to Christ’s Word

This is really an application for us as a church.

When Satan is released, when he is unbound, what does he do? He immediately puts all of his effort into trying destroying the Church.

What does that tell you? The church is the only thing standing in Satan’s way.

The only thing keeping him from leading untold multitudes into Hell and robbing Christ the glory due to His Name.

If Satan can destroy or compromise the church then who will be there to preach good news and salvation that is only found in Jesus Christ?

We are Christ’s army sent out by our King to conquer the gates of Hell (Matthew 16:18) and tear down every stronghold of Satan with prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of God’s Word.

But not if we do not hold fast to God’s Word.

Finally, point number 3. After Christ delivers the church, he will cast Satan into Hell and deliver us once and for all from our enemy’s rage.

Number 3...

III. Satan Will Perish Under the Judgment of Christ

Revelation 20:10 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.

This fulfills what God promised in Isaiah 27:1 In that day the Lord with his severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Christ will cast Satan into Hell, and he will perish in the lake of fire.

Now that’s a heavy word. It means to be lost. Broken. Utterly destroyed. Undone or ruined. To suffer destruction with no way or opportunity for escape.

Satan does not rule over Hell. He will suffer there.

Revelation 14:10-11 describes Hell like this: He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.

Hell is the place of God’s wrath and judgment on sinners of whom Satan was the first.

This usually trips people up because people ask how can a loving God send someone to Hell?

But God did not create Hell for people. Jesus said the eternal fire of Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

People end up in Hell because they followed Satan instead of Christ.

And it says Satan will be tormented day and night forever and ever. No rest, no relief.

Drowning in flames but never drowned.

Suffocating on smoke and noxious odors, but always breathing.

Satan will be thrown down once and for all never to rise again.

And here’s what’s terrifying. Satan’s torment gives us a picture for the torment that waits for everyone who follows Him. Gog and Magog. All people who follow after sin and refuse to repent and worship Christ.

Listen to how one author, J. Marcellus Kik, says it.

He will be tormented by those whom he deceived and led into hell. It is not difficult to imagine that they will gnash upon him and curse him for his deceptions. How they will hurl at him his first lie: “Ye shall not surely die.” they will cast at him his false promise: “Ye shall be as gods.”...He will be surrounded by a lake of curses. His nostrils cannot escape the stench... It is part of his torment day and night. He will be hated, despised, and rejected throughout all eternity.

Those in Hell will curse their existence by cursing the one who deceived them into it.

Because like Him, they will be tormented day and night. They will be hated, despised, and rejected for all eternity. All because they listened to Satan’s lies.

But here’s the good news. In Christ God can forgive all your sin.

Gospel

This is really amazing, and its not my own. I got it from one of the commentators I read, Peter Leithart, and I want to share it with you.

The way John writes the last days of Satan in Revelation 20 serves as an Antigospel for the last days of Christ.

Seized

John said I saw an angel coming down from heaven...and he seized the dragon (Rev. 20:1-2).

When they came to arrest Jesus Matthew says The mob laid hands on Jesus and seized him (Matthew 26:50).

Bound and Sealed

John says the Devil was bound for a thousand years and thrown into the abyss and it was sealed over him (Rev. 20:1-3).

Likewise in John 18:12 John says, So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.

Then, after he died on a cross they laid Jesus in the grave and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard (Matthew 27:66).

Loosed

Then Satan was loosed and came out from the bottomless pit to gather the nations like the sand on the seashore to lead them to their ultimate destruction and eternal death (Rev. 20:7-10).

Christ, on the other hand, rose again and Acts 2:24 says God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

And when Christ came out of the grave He sent out the Church to gather His elect like the sand of the seashore from the four corners of the earth to forgive their sin and lead them to eternal life (Matthew 24:31).

The only question is who will you be gathered to?

If you are gathered to Satan and remain dead in your sins, you will suffer with him in the lake of fire.

But if you come to Christ who died in our place for our sins on the cross and rose again three days later, and you repent of your sin and put all of your faith in Him, then God promises you will be saved.

He will forgive sin and give you eternal life.

God writes the best stories. And the loosing of Satan is a funhouse mirror of the greatest story of all.

The unbinding of Satan and His ultimate doom proclaim the amazing grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

One day, Christ will cast the Devil into Hell and deliver the Church from Satan’s rage once and for all.

Christ will return, He will judge the living and the dead, and cast the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan into the lake of Fire to be tormented day and night forever and ever.

And on that glorious day we will be saved and Christ will finally give us perfect rest from all of our enemies on every side for all eternity.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Matthew 4:1-11 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”

Hebrews 2:14-17 “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”