June 6, 2021 Revelation 20:1–6
1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. He had the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, bound him for a thousand years, 3 threw him into the abyss, locked it, and set a seal on it, so that he could no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years come to an end. After this he must be released for a short time. 4 Then I saw thrones, and those who were sitting on them were given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast and his image, and they did not receive his mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years came to an end.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them. Instead they will be priests of God and of Christ. And they will reign with him for a thousand years.
The Great Chain Locks Up Satan. Trust it! Use It!
Back in World War II, Germany’s main weapon was the Blitzkrieg. A swift and powerful attack in a concentrated area to break through the enemy lines. A popular video game called Mortal Kombat features each fighter with a specific skill set, one main weapon.
Satan’s main weapon is deceit. He takes a truth and he twists it, perverts it, and makes it mean the exact opposite of what it is actually saying. Think of what he did with Eve in the Fall at the Garden of Eden. God said not to eat from ONE tree. But the Devil twisted it and spoke as if God had forbidden from eating ALL trees, when God had only forbidden one tree in a forest of perfect trees. Satan also questioned God’s MOTIVES, making it sound like God was trying to HOLD SOMETHING BACK from them and keep them from reaching their full potential, to be like God. Eve had God’s clear Word on the subject. Yet Satan was able to convince her that God was lying to her within the span of a few minutes. Satan is a smooth talking liar.
His lies abound all the more today, and sometimes they get exposed even by the media. Leslie Stahl recently did a recent interview on 60 Minutes with some people who had tried to change genders. They had been told through social media and television shows that being transgender can make you happy when you can express your true identity. Within the course of three months they contemplated and made their decision, and nobody in the medical world even questioned them. Instead, they encouraged them to go through medical procedures as quickly as possible. So young men and women have had their private parts removed in hopes of transitioning to the other gender. Lo and behold, it didn’t take long for them to realize they had made a huge mistake, and they were upset. What they were especially upset about was that nobody counseled them or even tried to stop them. One woman just said, “being female isn’t working for me.” And that’s all it took. You can’t help but feel bad for them in a sense that they were deceived so badly.
A married man once stood in a friend of mine’s living room. He was in tears. He had been seduced by another woman who made him feel like she would make him happy for the rest of his life if he left his wife. It didn’t take long into the affair for the seductress to change her mind. But that didn’t do any good for the man. His wife refused to take him back. He had lost everything he knew and loved over a deceitful woman’s lies, and there was nothing he could do about it. He blew it, and Satan had to be laughing. This is how Satan works, through lies and deceit.
John writes about this deception in a picturesque way. He said that people would have “the mark of the beast” on their heads and hands. What does that mean? Some have associated it with a social security number. Others now think it’s the vaccine. Again, the mark is symbolic. The head is what you think with. The hand is what you act with. It’s not an actual physical mark. It’s how you think and act in this world. They are all signs of Satan working in people’s thoughts and through people’s actions.
It’s a very striking picture that John describes for us in his vision from God. I love it because there is no mercy, only muscle for Satan, just what he deserves. There is no fighting back with Satan. He is quickly put into submission and conquered.
1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. He had the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, bound him for a thousand years, 3 threw him into the abyss, locked it, and set a seal on it, so that he could no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years come to an end.
With some more symbolic language, the Devil is compared to a dragon and a serpent. The serpent takes us back to the Fall into sin. The dragon is a powerful fire breathing legend of a beast. Jesus is compared to an angel, the Messenger of God who came down from heaven. The abyss has a lock and a seal, and Satan - a spirit - is locked up with a chain. Here God takes this LIAR and DECEIVER and locks him up for 1,000 years! It’s glorious!
What are the chains symbolic of? Ask yourself, “What is it that locks up Satan?” He’s a spirit. First of all, Satan is the one who is sometimes known as the Accuser. He is a demonic tattle tale. He gets us to sin and then wants God to condemn us for our sin. Jesus found a way to shut him up, by letting HIMSELF be locked up and nailed to the cross, to pay for our sins. God let His wrath come down on Jesus. Jesus came forth from the grave. God declared to the world, “Your sins are paid for.” So Satan can’t claim we owe God anything. When we are baptized into Christ and clinging to Christ, all of our sins are covered and paid for. Satan can’t do a thing against this defense. It chains him up and shuts him up.
Secondly, Satan is also the deceiver. So if we know the TRUTH, as revealed in the Word of God, then we will be able to resist his lies as well. We will know how God designed us as male and female, and how He designed marriage to be between one man and one woman until death do us part. We won’t talk about alternative lifestyles or other genders as if it’s all good and acceptable. We won’t live as if one race is better than another or worse than another. We won’t allow children to be murdered in the womb without speaking out against it. We also won’t try to take justice into our own hands with violence and insurrection. We will let God take care of the Final Justice.
That’s why I think Christianity poses such an interesting threat. We don’t threaten a war with guns. We pose a war of words and ideals. We won’t buy into the liberal agenda. We won’t fly their flags. We won’t believe their lies. We’ll be compassionate and yet firm about it. We won’t shut up even when they accuse us of hatred and bigotry. We know what true love is in telling the truth. We’ll chain up the lies with the simple truth.
This chaining goes on for 1,000 years. What are the thousand years? They are a symbolic number of completeness. The number 10 represents completeness. This is ten times ten times ten. Three in one. It’s all done. I tend to think of the entire era that is after Jesus said, “It is finished.” It’s here and now, until the end of time.
But there’s something seemingly wrong with this picture, isn’t there? Why are there souls of saints in heaven who have been BEHEADED? How could they be beheaded while Satan is locked up?
It is possible for two things to be true at once. Think about it. An unbeliever can have an active mind and body, but his soul is dead. When someone is brought to faith, their souls are brought from death to life. This is the first resurrection. But their bodies still are dying. When they die, then their bodies are dead but their souls live on in heaven. Two opposites can be true at the same time. Death and life happen together.
So also, if Satan is chained up, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have any influence on the world. In a positive way, think of Paul’s letters. Many of them were written from prison. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote much of his work from prison. So also Satan still has had influence even while in prison. He has locked plenty of people up while he was still imprisoned. His lies still get out. They sound good in this world. They appeal to the sinful nature even when they are against HUMAN nature.
People can also be free and locked up at the same time. See Paul and Silas get locked up in jail. Their lives were in danger and they were in pain. You would think they’d be the most miserable people on the planet. Here you have two men under the attack of an evil government and a false religion, yet they were perfectly at peace and singing hymns of praise to God. Why? They knew their sins were paid for. They knew they were being arrested for preaching the Gospel. So they had a clear conscience. They were locked up on the outside while free on the inside. This is the dichotomy that John is writing about. Even when Satan has people beheaded, what does the beheading do? It sets them free from this world! Their souls live and reign with Christ in heaven awaiting the great Resurrection.
As time goes on, the devil will get more and more freedom. You see how it has happened in America. Sunday school rooms are empty. Many of our own children can’t even recite the books of the Bible. Grandchildren no longer attend church. Parents don’t pray together or read the Bible on a private basis. Half of our own members aren’t attending church. It has left a vacant hole in America, and now you see the rise in Islam, atheism, and so many other religions. This is all as God predicted, that at the end of the 1,000 years Satan would receive more and more freedom. And a part of that is our own fault.
This sounds scary. What can we do? We still have the chain! We still have the Gospel. We still have Jesus. We still have baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We still have prayer, which God promises to answer. The chain hasn’t deteriorated. It hasn’t gotten any weaker. It hasn’t stopped working. It’s just that we aren’t using it like we could or should. I think of the old comedian Chris Farley in the movie Beverly Hills Ninja. Here’s this big oaf that has all these ninja tools but he has no clue how to use them, as he whacks himself in the head and makes a fool of himself. At least he tried to train with them and took them off the shelf! The tools that God gives us are easy to use! But you have some responsibility to train yourself in them. How many have no clue where to find anything in the Bible or what it is about? Do you pray regularly for those in need? Have you taken the time to read Bible stories with your child? Have you openly addressed the lies that Satan is putting on your teens and attacked it with what God’s Word says? It’s no wonder that Satan is running loose in today’s world when Christians don’t even trust the chain or use it.
There was a pastor who was dealing with a young man who was addicted to pornography. His life was consumed by it. So he came to the pastor for help. Sometimes daily he would come in and confess his sins to his pastor. He would receive forgiveness. They would pray together. It took TIME and EFFORT. But over time, the young man came in less and less, and his addiction finally waned. He was given freedom. His passions were chained. He didn’t need anything beyond prayer, confession, and absolution. When he used his pastor, the Word of God and the sacrament, God worked for him, and it can work for us too, if we just use His chain!
When we went through our recent evaluation, one of the things we wanted to claim was that we are passionate about Christian education. But that’s not really as true as it could be or should be. I’m talking about Sunday School over here. I’m talking about Sunday Bible Study, midweek Bible study, and private Bible study. I’m talking about parents getting involved and active in their learning. Passionate means we are gung ho about it. We believe in doing it and we believe it works! We are excited about it. We are energized. It’s hard to be energized when you see so much wickedness and unbelief, and when your own family members are falling for the lies. But you’re here today! You can still come. You can still pray. You can still speak. It starts with me and you. The devil is running around like a wild animal looking for people to devour, and he’s devouring plenty of our youth. Yet we are barely attempting to chain him off of our own families and church. We could have so much stronger marriages, stronger children, stronger Christians, if we just got into the Word more and let the Angel from heaven do His Work!
At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan will be released. Think of what happened with Job when Satan was given some freedom. Every generation thinks they are in the last days. Luther thought so, and even the disciples thought the end would come any minute. But none of them gave up. They faced their fears and fought for the faith. They openly proclaimed Christ crucified, and throughout all of the persecutions and pain, the church grew and the Gospel spread!
You have the one weapon, the only weapon that can defeat Satan. It’s not psychology. It’s not money. It’s not a firearm. It’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Know Him well. Pray to Him often. Receive His forgiveness from the cross for mercy and strength. God give you strength to speak up as our forefathers did. God give you zeal to learn more of Him. Don’t get lazy. Don’t let your guard down. The Great Chain Locks Up Satan. Trust It!
Use it! Amen.
