Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #11 of Revelation chapter 20 and we are going to read Revelation 20:9-10:
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
In verse 9 it is speaking of “Gog and Magog” and it says, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.” We saw in our last study that the word “compassed” led us to Luke 21 where God speaks of Jerusalem being compassed with armies and this tied in with the judgment of God upon the churches and congregations of the world during the 23-year Great Tribulation period. That fits the context of Satan’s loosing and the gathering together of the nations or the Gentiles (Gog and Magog) to battle and this would have taken place during the entire Great Tribulation period. Satan had an enormous force, including his emissaries in the churches because the Lord had abandoned the churches and turned them over to him and Satan took his seat there as the man of sin. He ruled over the corporate body of all the churches in the world, which numbered about two billion people according to censuses. That was the vast army called “Magog” that Satan used to destroy the camp of the saints and the beloved city. That continued until the end of the 23 years and then God turned around and judged Satan, just as God allowed the king of Babylon and the Babylonians to overcome Judah for 70 years. During the entire 70-year period Judah could not defend itself and was victim to Babylon, but then the Lord raised up the Medes and the Persians under King Cyrus and they conquered Babylon precisely at the end of the 70 years. Cyrus is a picture of Christ.
With the language of fire coming down from heaven and devouring them, the focus is really on the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day, which began on May 21, 2011. That was the 8,400th day (exactly 23 years) when the Great Tribulation ended. The reference to fire coming down from heaven to devour them leads us back to the two witnesses in Revelation, chapter 11. Let us turn there and I will read Revelation 11:4-5:
These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
The word “devoured” in our verse is the same word we find here in Revelation 11. It is fire that proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies, so it is very much related to what our verse says: “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” But, as we consider Revelation 11 saying this about the two witnesses, we realize it cannot be literal at all because the period of ministry of the two witnesses was the church age, from 33AD through May 21, 1988. God is saying it took place during the course of the 1,955 years of the church age. And who are the “two witnesses”? They are typified by “Moses and Elijah” or the “Law and the Prophets,” and they represent the witness of the Word of God, the Bible. If any man would “hurt” the witness of the Bible during the church age, then fire would proceed out of the mouth of the two witnesses (the Word of God, the Bible) and would devour them. We can see very clearly what God is saying here. During the church age, occasionally churches would go astray and become “another gospel” and this sometimes happened to whole denominations. What happened to them? The Word of God would condemn them or “hurt” them. For example, the condemnation might have come because a church or denomination would add unto the words of this Book, and, therefore, they were subject to the plagues written therein. Or, if they subtracted from the words of the Book, it was the same penalty. They were under the wrath of God and it was spiritual “fire and brimstone” that would fall upon a particular congregation or an entire denomination during the church age to devour them and burn them up in the eyes of God, according to the Word of God. The Word of God is the authority. It is a very important thing to be found faithful by the Word of God and to be in accord with the Word of God, so it was not a light matter at all when God’s Holy Word, the Bible, would pronounce condemnation upon them. In all spiritual reality, they were burned up or destroyed by the Word and the Bible would do that, again and again, over the centuries of the church age.
This helps us to understand the fire coming down from God. Yes, the fire came from the mouth of the two witnesses, but the two witnesses represent the Word of God. And where does the Word of God come from? It comes from God in heaven. So if the Word comes forth from the Bible, it is as if it is coming down from heaven and on May 21, 2011, God’s Holy Word, the Bible, pronounced a curse upon the earth. It pronounced the judgment and wrath of God. It began sending fire down from heaven which destroyed and devoured Satan and his army, Gog and Magog. They were devoured by the spiritual fire.
We talked about that many times. For instance, the tares in the churches or the unsaved people that inhabited the churches of the world were bundled on that day. The process of separating the wheat from the tares was complete and God issued forth the decree and commanded His people to depart out of the midst of the churches. Those that refused to obey and did not hearken to God’s Word remained there as “tares.” Without ears to hear and without a heart that desires to do the will of God, they did not get out. God has to give people ears to hear and a heart to obey His commandments, but these people did not obey because they were not truly His people. Then the door of heaven shut, sealing their fate. During the time that God was saving the great multitude in pouring out the Latter Rain, they still resided within the churches where there was no Latter Rain. Therefore, they could not have been saved during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation; they could not have enjoyed the spiritual blessing of the Latter Rain when God sent it. But, then, it was too late because God shut the door to heaven on all the world and they were spiritually devoured by fire. As soon as the door of heaven shut on May 21, 2011, all the tares in all the churches of the world were bundled and cast into the fire. That is what we are reading in this language that says, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Of course, Satan was also spiritually devoured on that day. He had no possibility of salvation because Christ made no provision for fallen angels. Christ did not die for any of the fallen angels, including Satan, and, therefore, they were destroyed by the spiritual fire. Also on that day the Lord Jesus exercised His right as Lord of lords and King of kings and the ultimate Supreme Ruler as He began to rule with a rod of iron. He deposed Satan from all he had previously ruled over. We have discussed that before, but that will lead us into next verse.
It says in Revelation 20:10:
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone…
The devil had deceived them and that is what we learned back in verse 8, where it said, “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.” It was a worldwide deception that was really unprecedented, even if we consider the time before the cross when Satan was not bound. He had been able to deceive the nations back then, but now it was a far greater deception at the time of the end due to the world population. When Satan was free to go about and deceive men prior to the cross, I do not know what the population of the entire world was at that time, but it was certainly nothing in comparison to the enormous population explosion at the time of the end. When we got close to 2011 there were about seven billion people in the world, so Satan found himself with a tremendous kingdom as he ruled over the hearts of unsaved men and he relished it and exalted in it. It was a wonderful time as far as Satan was concerned, but after that little season of only 23 years during the Great Tribulation, “the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.”
But notice what is says next in Revelation 20:10:
… where the beast and the false prophet are…
Satan has been cast into the lake of fire, but he has company. It is as if God is saying that the “beast and the false prophet” had already been judged and cast into the lake of fire. Of course, we are aware of that because that is exactly what we read in the previous chapter, in Revelation 19:20:
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Here is the description of the beast and the false prophet being cast into the lake of fire. Then we entered into chapter 20 and God laid out all this information concerning Satan’s binding and loosing and concerning Gog and Magog.
And now in Revelation 20, verse 10 we find a reference to “the devil,” and that is a name for Satan in the New Testament. You do not find that name in the Old Testament. God speaks of the devil only in the New Testament often. The Greek word translated as “devils” is also translated as “slanderers” and “false accusers” and this fits the devil well because he is a “slanderer” and “false accuser.” That name was used by Christ when He spoke a parable in Matthew 25 and foretold that the devil would be cast into everlasting fire. It says in Matthew 25:41:
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Here, Christ refers to the point in time when the devil was cast into the lake of fire. When we discussed the “second death,” we saw it was synonymous with the “lake of fire,” as God spoke of the “second death” twice in the context of the “lake of fire.” So, the devil is cast into the lake of fire and there is “the beast and the false prophet.” We know that Satan or the devil is just one personality – he is not more than one. The fallen angels could also be called “devils,” but there is one Satan who is that evil one that appeared in the Garden of Eden and entered into the serpent to deceive Eve and Adam. He rebelled against God because he desired to be like the “most High” and he is that particular fallen angel God has in view when he gives these names to Satan. We saw a few of these names back in Revelation 20:2:
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
All four of those names are speaking of the same evil one, Satan the devil. He is not more than one entity. What about the “beast” and the “false prophet”? They are just additional names for the devil. They are all speaking of that one fallen angel that God had originally created “good,” but then he rebelled against God.
So, why is God speaking this way when He speaks of the judgment of Satan as if he were multiple persons or personalities? In the Bible, God is given numerous names and each name teaches us something in particular about the Person of God. For instance, He is The Word. We know that refers to Jesus and Jesus is God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So this is a name of God that teaches us a great deal about the Person of God: He is intimately identified with the Word of God, the Bible, and all that we learn of the Word is true of God.
So this is how God teaches us about Himself. He is Truth, the way, and Life. Each of the names instruct us. He is JEHOVAH, which means “Saviour.” In the New Testament He is called the Saviour in the English translation. All these names give us more information about the character, the attributes and the Person of God.
Likewise, with Satan, the name “beast” was a name that was assigned to the devil for the period of the Great Tribulation. Therefore, it was the name that especially identified with that 23-year period. The “false prophet” is a name that God has assigned Satan which identifies with Satan’s propensity to lie when it comes to the Word of God, the Bible. That took on further identification during the Great Tribulation when the “image” was made like unto the beast and that image was said to be able to “speak” because it was the churches and congregations of the world. So Satan is also the “false prophet,” but you cannot separate that from the churches. So “the beast and the false prophet” were cast into the lake of fire on May 21, 2011, Judgment Day. The judgment of God came against the rule of Satan after the 23 years of the Great Tribulation and the judgment came against the churches and congregations that were made an image unto the beast. All of Satan’s emissaries, including the churches themselves, were bundled as tares and cast into the lake of fire. So term “the beast and the false prophet” teaches us certain aspects concerning the judgment of God upon Satan.
Likewise, this is true of the devil: “The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.” This is letting us know that Satan (in general) and the devil himself that had ruled over the nations of the world and every aspect of his evil being are under the wrath of God and now he has been judged and cast into the fire. God is emphasizing that the judgment upon Satan is “total” and it affects every aspect of Satan and his kingdom of darkness and the rule that he had since the fall of man.