There will be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years. And when a thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and May Gog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea, and they marched up over the broad 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. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, for another Lord's day morning on which we can take part in a little bit more fuller way in the eternal Sabbath rest that you have prepared for us. We thank you that you grant us this foretaste of glory when we may come apart for a little while, and worship you with your people, sing your praises in the midst of the community and the congregation, and to learn from your word how gracious you are to us, that you have not left us orphans, you have not left us without a word, but that you have given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and that you have granted us this in your word. We ask, once again, that you would open the eyes of our hearts, allow us to see, and having seen, to obey, we thank you and give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, chapter 20, once again, I think it's worth our time to take a little bit more time on chapter 20, even though it makes a little bit nervous about finishing the whole book, but it has been so important, so critical in many ways for the church and for the way we interpret Christian history and even all the Bible, but I think it's worth taking a little bit more time. Last time we started out, just talking about chapter 20, and we mentioned a couple of factors in the interpretation, maybe that's too small. We talked about whether chapter 20 and chapter 19 fit together in a certain way, whether they fit together in a chronological way, or whether we should look at it as a recapitulation of what we've seen in chapter 19, and in fact, what we've seen several times in Revelation that we come to an end point, we come to the climax of human history in the second coming in the judgment, and then John turns and receives a vision of the whole Christian era again, starting over. That's what I've suggested is the case here. An example of recapitulation again in chapter 20. As you remember, there are other modes of interpretation that would see chapters 19 and 20 as chronological, so what happens in chapter 19 happens, and then in history, history moves on to chapter 20, and we see Satan bound at that point. The second thing we talked about last time was the question of the binding of Satan, because Satan is said to have been seized, the great chain, and then thrown into a pit, and the pit is locked over him, so he's able to deceive the nations no longer, until a thousand years are ended, and then he must be loosed. We talked about whether that is a present fact, or whether that is something still to come, something future in a millennium that is still future to us. Again, I've suggested that we should understand this in light of many other New Testament passages, which talk about a defeat of Satan, a curtailment of his powers, that has been affected by Christ through his first coming, through the cross and through the resurrection and ascension. Reminding ourselves that we saw at least one other instance of this in Revelation itself, in chapter 12, right, chapter 12, where Satan is thrown down, he's defeated in heaven, a war breaks out in heaven, he's defeated and he's thrown down. So I'm arguing that this should be seen as another way of picturing, and remember it is a picture. There's no chain, no material of which a chain could be made that we know of, that could hold a spiritual being. It's a picture, so it's a picture of a curtailment of Satan's powers, and in particular, he is unable to lead the forces of evil together, to gather them together for the great attack on God's church. There, of course, other ways of interpreting that binding as future, and we talked about that last time. Let's go on to another factor. We move then to verses four and following. I'm saying we're done with verses one through three. Verses four and following. This is where we're introduced to the actual description of the reign of Christ in the saints. Verses four through six in particular. Several questions come out naturally here. One is, where does this reign take place? What's the scene? What's the locus of the reign or the base of the reign here? What signs do you see? Do you see signs that it would be taking place on earth? Do you see signs that it might be taking place in heaven? Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. You could go back to verse one, and since there is a descent of an angelic being from heaven, then maybe the whole of the chapter is not in heaven. This at least has to do with the binding of Satan. He is bound and even cast pictorially. He's cast beneath the earth into a pit. This probably has to do with earth, even though Satan's cast into a pit. Whether verses four through six are also or are on earth, is another question. Anything in verses four through six that might give you any hint. Okay, there are mentioned the souls of the beheaded. Now that would seem to argue for heaven, not earth. Okay, if he sees the souls, now we've seen the souls of the slain at least one other time in Revelation. I was back in chapter six where John sees the souls of the slain where under the altar in heaven. So he's seen the souls at least once more. I think we've heard from the souls many different times in Revelation when we hear voices break out in heaven and so forth. And when the inhabitants of heaven are addressed as saints, apostles, and prophets. So we've heard about them, but here we read of souls that John sees the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Christ. You could also talk about the thrones, John sees the thrones place. It's been pointed out that almost every reference in Revelation to thrones in almost every reference the thrones are in heaven. I think the exception is when the throne of Satan is mentioned and that is said to be a pergamum, actually. So that might also argue for heaven. I would argue that this is a heavenly scene. That there is nothing in the description of verse four through six that would indicate that we're looking at something going on on earth. Now of course it has implications for earth, and that's something that I hope we can talk about at a later point what are some of the implications of our view of this chapter. But I don't see anything that makes me think that this is an earthly scene. John. First five says the rest of the dead. Who are the rest of the dead? Good question. Why don't we get into that, I think the next point or one of the next points is going to be the first resurrection. What is the first resurrection? So why don't you say that one? Yeah, Ken. In verse four I mean. Okay, it separates it more. Yeah, okay, that's a point. How closely related are verses one through three and then four through six and then seven through ten. Thematically you can see that there's a new subject that starts in each one of those places. One through three, four through six and seven through ten. So it would be at least plausible to see a change of scenery in each one of those. With verses seven through ten then we do definitely see the earthly plane. We see that Satan is released and he gathers Gog and May Gog and so forth. Well, this could probably be argued but this is particularly the reference to the souls here. I think tips us off that it's a heavenly scene. You could look at sort of a sort of a negative way in what it does not say. That is there were a number of Jewish apocalypses that were roughly contemporary with revelation. And they did speak of an earthly reign of a Messiah figure or of God's people. And the way they describe that reign contrasts in a number of important ways from how John describes this reign. For instance, in those other expressions there is always a return of the tribes of Israel, the lost tribes of Israel, to the land. The land of Judea is restored, the temple is restored and sometimes sacrifices are said to be restored as well. There is a super abundance of earth's produce, no more enmity between animals or between animals and man. All these descriptions that would go along with an earthly rule are not mentioned here. Now, you could say, well, he's just chosen not to mention them. But this is one thing that sets revelation apart from these Jewish apocalypses that we know have a sort of millennialist bent to them. Well, those are some factors in trying to figure out where this reign is taking place. The next thing is the question of who reigns with Christ in this section. Paul, excuse me, John sees, as Ken already pointed out, the souls of the beheaded. Does he see any more people than the souls of the beheaded? That's one of the key questions. Now, the grammar of the passage, the syntax, maybe I should say, is actually a little bit difficult. It's not quite ordinary, you might say. And so people have argued for different ways of dividing the sentence. Is he talking about just one group? Is he talking about two groups? Maybe more than that. He sees that he says he saw thrones and they sat upon them. And then he continues in the same verse. You may have a period in the middle of that verse. See that on them were those to whom judgment was committed. How the RSV has it. New sentence. Also, I saw the souls. You couldn't see that as two groups of people. In the original, there's no other verb there. He doesn't say, also I saw the souls. It's just also the souls. So the object of the verb, I saw thrones and souls. Same verb used only once. Which, to me, would argue for one group of people, the ones who are sitting on the thrones are the souls. Then you've got another break, another possible break here. The souls of those who have been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. And who had not worshipped the beast for its image. The way my translation reads, that sounds like the same group again. They had been beheaded and who had not worshipped the beast. I don't know if your versions all have that as one sentence or not. Some people have argued that that's another group. So you have the souls of the beheaded and you have those who did not receive the mark of the beast. Two groups. So there are certain questions here. I think the whole syntax of the passage suggests that there is one group. And that would be the souls of the beheaded who had not worshipped the beast or received the mark of the beast. If you say two, if you say that there are two groups, well then it still seems like you have the souls and then you have those who had not worshipped the beast. What is the significance of this? Well, if you want to ask who is reigning with Christ, it does look to me like it is all those who have been slain. In fact, beheaded and it's their reigning as souls in heaven. I think that this should be seen as a picture, again, a symbol of the church that has come out of the great tribulation, that is the time of the Christian era. In other words, all of the saints are pictured, being pictured as martyrs. Whether they were in fact literal physical martyrs or not, that would mean that although martyrs are specifically mentioned, they stand for all the church. They stand like the part for the whole. They stand for the whole church. In a similar way to when we were in chapter 14, and John sees the 144,000 and they are said to be, they are all said, not to have defiled themselves with women. Does that mean that all the 144,000 are men, virgin men? Literally, I don't think so. Again, I think that's a picture. All the saints are being pictured as virgin males who would be qualified to be high priests and who would be qualified to go into battle for Israel in holy war. So I think there's a picture. Also the woman, the woman in chapter 12, who is with child. Does that mean all the saints are women? No, again, it's a picture. It's another kind of picture. So I would argue that we have one of those here as well. The saints who reign with Christ in the millennium are pictured as martyrs. If you want to try to take everything very literally here, then I think you have a problem too, because it does say beheaded saints. I mean, that would exclude anybody who was crucified, anybody who was stoned, anybody who was beaten to death, anybody who was stabbed, anybody who was hung, only the beheaded. The beheaded, at this time, there was a certain, there was a real meaning for that. This was a particularly Roman method of execution. That is, if you were a Roman citizen, you could have the blessing of being beheaded. Otherwise, what would they do to you? They might crucify you. Or they might put you in the amphitheater and let the beasts come at you and eat you. Or they might tie you to a stake and put wood underneath and burn you. Or that number of other ways of executing you that were not nearly as pleasant as beheading. We presume Paul was beheaded. That's the way he met his lord because he was a Roman citizen. But as you know, Stephen was stoned. Peter, according to tradition, was crucified upside down. Ignatius of Antioch was thrown to the wild beasts and so on and so on. So, again, this makes me think that it is a picture and saying that they're all beheaded, again, is a stab at this point at Rome, who is in John's day, I think, the beast. The expression of the beast in John's day, not that Rome is always the beast. Okay, yes, I see a hand back there. Yeah, that's a good question. It could be either one. The souls of those who had been slain in chapter 6, it doesn't say beheaded. It just says the souls of those who have been slain for the word of God. That could all as well be a picture of all the saints. Yeah, that's possibly, too. The next question related to this then is the question of the first resurrection. What is meant by the first resurrection? And this gets over to John's question that he was raising before. And what was that question exactly, John, do you remember? John says, yeah, who are the rest of the dead mentioned in verse 5? And what does it mean to live again and that they did not live again or come to life again? Verse 5 says, 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 he who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power. And what then is the first resurrection who shares in it so forth? We've mentioned who shares in the first resurrection. It's the souls of the beheaded. The rest of the dead, are they the rest of the Christian dead? Are they the rest of all the unbelieving dead? I think it's the latter. That is, I think it's the unbelieving dead. And when it says that they did not come to life until the thousand years are ended, it means that they did not have part in the first resurrection. They did not come to life and reign with Christ. One thing I'm trying to get out here, and I think I'm having a sense right now that I'm moving a little bit too quickly, because I haven't just given you a short overview of what I think the whole passage is talking about. And we've mentioned that the scene is heaven, and the people are the souls, reigning with Christ. That is, I think it's a picture of the saints in heaven, in the present age, between the first coming and the second coming. The thousand years is a metaphor for that reign of Christ, which begins with his resurrection and ascension, and which he brings to a triumphant close at his second coming, before the eternal phase of his reign ensues. So that's the overall picture that I have of this reign. So the rest of the dead who did not come to life mean the unbelievers who do not share in this life of heaven, in this resurrection. In this view, the first resurrection would be the rising of the souls of the believers to be with Christ in heaven when they die. In other words, it's not the bodily resurrection at the last day. The way scripture everywhere else presents the resurrection is by presenting the physical resurrection at the last day as happening all at once. That is, there's one resurrection of believers and unbelievers. John 5, for instance, Jesus is speaking, and he says in verse 25, truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live, and there he's talking about the dead in spirit, the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and will live. For as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and he has given him authority to execute judgment because the Son, because he is the Son of man, do not marvel at this for the hours coming when all who are in the tombs, and there I think he's talking about the actual physically dead, all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment, so the hour is coming, the hour is coming when all in the tombs will hear his voice and they'll come forth, those who have done evil to a resurrection of judgment, those who have done good to the resurrection of good and blessing. This is the picture everywhere else in Scripture of one resurrection of righteous and unrighteous, and then they go to their just desserts. If this first resurrection revelation is talking about a first bodily resurrection of a group of saints, all the same group of saints, then it would present a different picture than we've got elsewhere. That's one reason that makes some people think this is a spiritual resurrection. It's either the resurrection that we experience here on earth when we become Christians, that conversion, a resurrection of the Spirit, or it's a resurrection of the Spirit of the soul to go to be with Christ at the time of death, and that's the version that I favor. Because it seems to make sense within the whole of the passage, seeing that viewing this as a picture, again, of Christ ruling with his saints throughout the present era in heaven. One other interesting aspect about that is that well, this whole notion of first, first and second, it said that those who have part in the first resurrection are blessed, and over them the second death has no power, right? So you have mentioned of a first resurrection and now you were never actually told about a second resurrection, so I put it in parentheses, but first implies a second, right? If there's first, there's got to be at least one more following. We're also told about a second death, over such the second death has no power. We're not told specifically about a first death, but of course it implies a first death. And so how do you understand first death and second death, first resurrection, second resurrection? The way a lot of people understand it is, okay, everybody undergoes the first death when they die, physically, physical death. Some will also have the second death of spiritual death as well, or body and spirit. Some, however, even if we all undergo the first death, only some of us undergo the first resurrection, believers, but we will all undergo the second resurrection, believer and unbeliever. Okay, that's one way to look at it, but it's not the only way as I trip over the thing here. In the passage we just read out of John, for instance, Jesus just says in verse 24, chapter 5, Truly, I say to you, he who hears my voice and believes, him who's sent me, has he turned alive? He does not come into judgment, but has passed from what? From death to life. Has this person died? Not physically. He's passed from death to life. Truly, the hours coming now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. Again, he's talking about spiritual death and spiritual life. So, there is a sense in which, well, for the Christian death is not death. I am the resurrection and the life, he says. He who believes in me will never die, though he died yet will he live and those who believe in me will never die. That death that we undergo is life. It's really a first resurrection and then we will have a second resurrection, but for the believer there is only the first death and the second death. In other words, another way you can look at this first and second thing is to say, really, this is for the believer and this is for the unbeliever, that it's the believer who has both the first resurrection and the second resurrection of body and soul. And it's the unbeliever who dies the first death, physical death and dies the second death as well, physical and spiritual death. I think that makes a lot of sense because you also have the terminology of first and second or first and last in scripture. That tends to associate first with this world, this present state of existence, this present state, and the second or the last as something eschatological, something that is the world to come. For instance, when we get simply the chapter 21 of Revelation, verse 1, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first which heaven, the first heaven and the first earth had passed it away. The first has to do with what now is and the new or the second has to do with eternity. So even with that kind of terminology, this would fit. Well, what does that mean for the passage and for the question it was asked? Well, it would mean that those who participate in the first resurrection are believers who die and go to be with the Lord and who reign with Him in that heavenly millennial reign. The unbelievers, the rest of the dead did not come to life until a thousand years are ended. And does that even imply that they ever came to life? Often when we use the word until, we do mean that when the termination point comes, there's a change. That is, they didn't come to life until a thousand years are ended, then they did come to life. But not always, we don't always use the word until that way. The Scripture doesn't either. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes that Christ must reign until what? Until all his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. So then when that happens, Christ no longer reigns. No. No, it's just making the point. It has a point of termination in mind and that's the emphasis. The emphasis is on this. He reigns and he's going to reign until all his enemies are under his feet, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. I don't even say he's not going to reign after that. Or another example, Paul says in Romans that sin indeed was in the world before the law or until the law was given. Does that mean when the law was given, there was no more sin in the world? No. The point that he's just emphasizing this particular period and what's going on in that period up until the point of termination. So I would argue here that probably what we've got here is that the rest of the dead do not come to life during the whole period of the thousand year reign. When they rise from the dead, I mean they will have a resurrection. But I'm afraid for them the resurrection is not really life. It's life in a pretty sorry sense. It is really the second death. So they never really share in life. They never share in the life that Jesus is talking about when he says that in me you have life. So that's how I would understand that. In other words, we're not in this section of Scripture, we're not talking about a physical resurrection, the resurrection that we think of typically the bodily resurrection. That of course again would set the omillennial view off particularly for the pre-millennial view. Some post-millennial views would be a lot like the omillennial view here. So that will be the first resurrection and those who did not rise in the first resurrection would be unbelievers who did not go to be with Christ to join him in his heavenly reign. When we get to chapter 20 verse 7, I know those questions are still forming in your mind. This is probably except for Dr. James radically new to most of you. How do you characterize his state as death? How do you characterize the state as a member of the dead? Frank is asking about the state of the unbelieving dead and how we conceive of that and he's saying ask me to speculate which I never do. There is minimal, I think there is some evidence in Scripture, not a whole lot. I believe it's in 2 Peter or Jude, which I believe the 2 Peter says that if God is able to rescue, he's listed a number of Old Testament precedents, rescue a lot, rescue a lot righteous lot and so forth. So he is able to rescue the godly and to keep the ungodly under judgment. But I think that is an indication that even now the ungodly dead are in punishment. But there is certainly not very much about it, I don't think, in Scripture. That's more or less an implication that they are not in a blessed state but an implication that the real justice will be needed out at the time of the resurrection in the last judgment. Yeah, I think I'd be comfortable with that way of putting it, an intermediate judgment or punishment and then looking to the final judgment. Yeah, that's good, Dave's bringing up the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Of course some theologians will bark at that a little bit because they think it's a parable of Jesus and they're a little hesitant to apply it. But I think it certainly gives that general picture and we're probably not far wrong thinking that that's a general picture of the suffering of the unrighteous as opposed to the blessedness of the righteous in the afterlife before the final judgment. That's certainly what's, that's certainly the parable there. Yeah, right. Well, I'm not sure what points made by that, okay, Lazarus would just be a name like John Doe, your friend of you like that, is that right? Or what? I may have misunderstood your question, I'm sorry. Right. Oh, so I'm not blocking at that. Okay, I see what you mean. Sorry. I guess it's hard to imagine Jesus telling parables that have just no relationship to, you know, what he's talking about. So I wear it as I would hesitate to press the details and say, well, does that mean that people in hell or Hades can talk to people in heaven? You know, because you have Lazarus or the rich man in Hades talking to Abraham saying, send Lazarus to, you know, bring me some water. Does that, is that an implication? Well, I'm very hesitant to say that. But does it, I think you can hardly come away from that without thinking that the unrighteous dead are in a miserable place in the righteous dead or in a place of blessing? That's about all I, yeah, that's, yeah. Well, of course, because Dr. James asked it. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, that's, that's, sorry, Frank. Yeah, it's a pertinent question. It is. I don't want to make, at all, make a lie to that. That's just, I'm just saying that there are some theologians who won't press anything from that passage because they say it's a parable. Yes. Cross. Yeah. Cross was asking about the purgatory question and whether this, the state of the unrighteous, and whether there is for them a hope of the unrighteous becoming saved eventually. Is that it? I think Dale probably has something directly on this. I can't go from having Dr. Directed, that in Dante's purgatory, the very fact that you are in purgatory means eventually you will be purged from anything that you barge, you can have it. You know, so they suffer with hope in purgatory right over the days of hell, abandoned hope on you during your fear. And if you get purgatory promptly, you're going to get to heaven eventually. You made it. Yeah. Right. Right. That's been purged over the last two years. Right. Yeah, I think that's, that's easy to get a, very easy to get a misconception of what is purgatory in Roman Catholicism. As I understand it, as Dale was saying, really purgatory is for the saved. It's a, it's a, it's a section for the saved. It's just that they're going to undergo a lot of purification and purging until they get there, get to blessedness. But it's still not a, there's another category, another category for the damned who are never in purgatory. Not the people in, not the people in Hades or hell, as I understand it, is, yeah. Right. Those are the saints. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the large category, I think, well, at least the largest category of, of believers will be in purgatory and will eventually make it to heaven. But there is a category that doesn't get to purgatory even, and they don't have a chance. That's it. Right. Right. Right. This is a quick, simple punishment and an eternal punishment. And so that Christ, those who are Christians, Christ gets paid to every term punishment through your sins. But, but every sin still has, you have to pay something for your sins. And so every Christian, virtually will have to go to purgatory to pay off the temple punishment that every sin deserves. So, Andy Wright, virtually will have to have, once they've been purgatory or purified, out there, the temple punishment will do their sins. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Dr. James is saying that in Catholic theology, there's a temporal and the eternal punishment for sins. The Christ is taking care for the believer of the eternal, but there's still temporal consequences. And that's what purgatory is, the working out of that. Now, Carly, yeah. Right. Okay. Carly is saying, at least in, in the inferno, their martyrs would go directly to heaven. I take it, canonized saints will have already made it by the time they're canonized, which is a little bit later. Yes, there is their, I must repeat that for the second to take. Dale says it points out that this is in Dante. There are lots of popes in hell if that makes you feel any better. One more question on this topic, I think, and then we'll have to go on Ed. Yeah. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Right. A plea bargain sort of thing. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. How do you think St. Peter's was built? Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. Oh, Ed is making a point that also you could, that's why prayers to saints are good because they're already in heaven. They don't, you know, they have the ear of Christ. They haven't gone, had a pass to purgatory. And that, the whole Protestant Reformation, well, one reason for it was the sale of indulgences, which meant that by contributions, what was, what was that little saying? When the coin and the copper clings ring. Okay. Thank you. Every time a coin in the copper rings, you want to say, clings, a soul from purgatory springs. So yes, you could, in a sense, buy your way out of purgatory. All right. This is, this is very fascinating and very pertinent. But I'm going to go on to verses seven through ten, which I think we can, I'm going to try to cover a very short compass. And this is when Satan is released from his prison and goes out to gather, Gog and Megog, whoever they are, for the battle. Gog and Megog, just very briefly, if you go back to Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39, you'll see Gog and Megog mentioned. Are they a real political entity, or entities, or not? A lot of biblical scholars would say that they are symbolic names. That is, we shouldn't look for a place on the map called Gog or Megog or a king called Gog. Now this, that is their symbolical names for Gog's enemies. And I would go along with that. I don't think it's going to be the actual name of either a king or a kingdom. But that's earlier in Revelation. We read about the beast and the false prophet gathering the wicked to fight against the saints. I think this is just, again, one more picture of that. We've seen that in chapter 16 and chapter 19 in particular. This, again, I think is just another picture of that. There will come a time after this time of the thousand year reign when Satan is able, apparently, to marshal all his forces against the church for a final attack. Now it does look like this is a serious attempt. Satan has been lost, and he's been able to do something that he has not been able to do for the duration of the thousand years. Of course, before the climax happens, or perhaps if it is the climax, fire comes down out of heaven and destroys him. While he has the camp of the saints, again, I think it's a metaphor, will all the saints be able to be put in one camp or even in one beloved city. But fire comes down and destroys the opposition. This is the ruin of Satan. Then he is thrown into the lake of fire, and that's the place where the beast and the false prophet are. So Satan ends up having the same end result as the beast and false prophet. We noted this a number of weeks ago how all the enemies of God in Revelation are introduced, and then they're dispensed with in reverse order. We have death and hate, you have Babylon, you have the beast and false prophet, and you have Satan, or the dragon. Well, I guess the dragons are earlier there. Sorry, I got that out of order. But if you get the point, then they fall in reverse order. Babylon, the beast and false prophet, the dragon, and last of all death and hate, at the end of chapter 20. So here we have the demise of the devil. I do think I would be remiss if I didn't point this out, particularly since I don't know how many post-millennials are present, that I think this is a difficulty for a post-millennial view. That is, if you take the view that the world is becoming more and more Christianized, and Christ will return to a Christianized planet, this final revolt is problematic. How is it that Satan is able to lead this revolt with all these hordes, and it looks like, even though it doesn't end up this way, but it looks as though the saints are going to be overcome. That doesn't fit real well with the idea of a Christianized world waiting to receive Christ with open arms. Okay, if you were a post-millennial, you'd probably have a comeback for that, but I'm just going to leave it. No, I think that there's a difficulty. I'm not saying, again, that's a fatal difficulty, but I think that's a difficulty for that view. I think we've also talked about this before, but I think it's a difficulty for the pre-millennial view that there are these hordes around to be deceived at the end of Christ's earthly reign. Again, if the millennium in verses 46 is a millennium on earth with Christ personally present and reigning with a rod of iron and saints live a thousand years and so forth. Again, it's a stretch of the imagination to imagine where these hordes will come from that will look like they can overcome the saints in one final attack. Again, is that a fatal problem for the pre-millennial views? Pre-millennials are able to operate with that difficulty, but again, that's just one of the factors for me, just one of the factors.
From heaven, right, because it does look like there's the camp of the saint. Well, he goes up over the broad earth and leads the hordes against the church. One other factor I'd like to mention at this point in the interpretation of the millennium is that in antiquity we really have to do, when we're talking about eschatology, we really have to deal with what I call eschatological patterns. That is not just an isolated doctrine like pre-millennialism or post or omelanelism, but that these were part of larger patterns of thinking, patterns of eschatological thinking. If you go and look at the early Christian pre-millennialists and there were some, and I freely admit this, again, Irenaeus, one of my heroes of all time, was a pre-millennialist. But, and if you look at the Jewish, what I'd call Jewish pre-millennials, a Jewish kill-ass, or whatever, they have a distinctive view also of the afterlife of the Christian, or afterlife of the Jewish ones, not the Christian, but the believer. And that is that the believer goes to an underground section of Hades, or sheol, it's not a punishment, it's not a purgatory, they go there and they wait for resurrection. Now, the point is not that that's a necessarily a bad place because it's not presented as a place of punishment, but the point is it's not heaven. And the point is it's not with Christ. Now, I think that's a very telling thing. It shows that the pre-millennial pattern of eschatology had a certain source in contemporary Jewish eschatology that was not, I'll say, fully Christianized. So that when they brought over the Christian pre-millennialist, brought this view over into Christian, they were stuck with that view of the intermediate state of the afterlife of the soul. Everybody following what I'm saying. So that even people like Irenaeus said that when the Christian dies, he goes to Hades there to wait the resurrection. There's a certain logic to that. You wait underneath the earth for the millennium which is going to be on the earth before heaven, before the actual presence of God and Christ. Now, I see that as a problem. It also shows me that this is not really the New Testament view, because in the New Testament it's one of the marvelous revolutions of the Christian faith. Is that the believer dies and goes to be with the Lord in heaven. And again, I would see that as part of a pattern of eschatology. And that pattern, when we look at early Christian writings that deal with these things, we see that people who play on that pattern or play on the heavenly hope of the Christian after death. Those people are not advocating an earthly millennium. In other words, that does show me that there is, again, this opposite pattern. There's the pattern of Hades and then the millennium on earth and then heaven. And there's another pattern that the Christian goes to be with Christ in heaven. And when Christ returns, his saints come with him and then we have the New Heaven and the New Earth. No further intermediary reign of Christ. Okay, that's briefly that point. Any other questions on that? I want to make that because for me, at least, that's a significant pattern. And when we, I guess the Vakude taught there, is that revelation itself depicts quite a vibrant view of the saints in heaven in the present age. We can go throughout the book in chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 14, and various places throughout the book where the saints are seen as in heaven. Who is first? The first and second resurrection as part of the time. The first resurrection is when the guy will be the war, the second one when we receive the resurrection by. What happens if Christ comes back and we're still here? Is the war together at one time? Yeah, I guess so, Rick's asking what, what about those who are alive when, when Christ returns? And yes, remember when Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says, the dead shall be raised and we shall be changed, we that is who are alive shall be changed. So there's a transformation that parallels the resurrection for, for the believers that are here then. Yes, I think I think maybe. Yeah, that's something we could talk about at a huge time. Yeah, that various possibilities for holding places in, in Jewish or Christian theology before the, before the resurrection. But I would say the New Testament hope for Christians is very simple. It's not elaborated on very much, but it's a hope of being with Christ. Paul says, I desire to depart and be with Christ for let us far better. That's, that's the key thing in Christianity that it's, we have a union with Christ, that death cannot sever. And so it's, it's being with Christ. Yeah, yeah, about the, the battle and so forth. Yeah, we could maybe come back to that if we need to, but just briefly, the, I would identify this battle at the end of chapter 20 with the battle we've seen in chapter 16 and chapter 19, chapter 16 called the Battle of Armageddon. So this is the, this is the big one because remember, we're at the end of the millennium in the Omelignal View is the end of this age. So yeah, I, yeah, I think it means, briefly, it means that, you know, we have an ebb and flow in history. The church seems to be very successful and then undergoes difficulties. And it means that right towards the end, there will be a time of great difficulty. Yeah. Okay, I, this is, this is very great and with, I love to continue the discussion afterwards, but we all do want to go to worship. So let's pray. We thank you, Lord, again, for, for your marvelous word. And we pray that you would lead each one of us into a greater understanding of your word. We thank you for its wonders, even for those mysteries that we do not fully understand. For we know that you understand them and our hope is all in you. Christ's name, amen. Yeah.