Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #10 of Revelation chapter 20 and we are going to read Revelation 20:7-9:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 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.

We have been looking at the loosing of Satan as God declared in verse 7, following the “thousand years,” which was a figurative period of time that represented the entire church age.  It was always God’s plan to loose Satan.  And he was loosed.  This is something that is in the past.  He was loosed back on May 21, 1988 at the end of the church age and it says of Satan Revelation 20:8:

And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth…

This included the entire world – the North, the South, the East and the West.  There was not a nation that did not experience this great deception of Satan during the Great Tribulation.  The Great Tribulation has ended now.  It ended on May 21, 2011, after 23 years.  So it is incredible that we are reading about something that now has already happened, because God had placed this information in the Book of Revelation and it was always a “future event.”  It is only now that we that are living on the earth in the Day of Judgment can look back and see these things in the past.  It is a very rare perspective that we have been given when we read the Book of Revelation.  It is one of the reasons why so many things can be understood because we can see how these things fit and we have actually lived through these things. 

It goes on to say in Revelation 20:8:

… to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

We saw that Gog and Magog are mentioned back in Ezekiel 38 and Gog, Magog, Tubal, Gomer and Togarmah are some names found there that directed us back to Genesis 10 and to the time after the flood.  They were sons of Japeth that established the nations or “isles” of the world.  In using these names, God is letting us know that they represent the unsaved inhabitants of the earth in all the nations of the world; they are “Gog and Magog.”  And, more specifically, the Lord helps us to understand further with the final part of Revelation 20:8:

… the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

Gog and Magog are “as the sand of the sea.”  Of course, there is a lot of sand of the sea, so it is an innumerable amount of people.  We also know that at the time of the end of the world, the population of the world has just exploded.  There are billions of people.  In previous history, there were plagues and wars and the population of the world was kept down by these things, but as we entered into the last phase of God’s salvation program, God allowed the population of the world to greatly multiply and billions of people now inhabit the earth.  That served a purpose when God was broadcasting the message of Judgment Day to all the nations of the world because it was God’s plan to save a great multitude out of the nations.  Tens of millions around the world were saved during the second part of the Great Tribulation known as the Latter Rain.  But in order for there to be so many saved, it was necessary for there to be a huge population because God has always saved a “remnant” out of the human race.  So if He were going to save the “great multitude” there would have to be billions of people so the principal of a “remnant” would be maintained.  That is what God did and He also brought the rest into judgment, so Gog and Magog are vast in number.  Satan, represented by Gog, has a vast army and God says this army is “as the sand of the sea.”  When we look up the term “sand of the sea,” we find the Lord made this sort of statement to Abraham back in Genesis 22:17:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

We know that the “seed” (singular) is Christ, but all those God saved are “in Christ” and are counted as the seed, so God is indicating that He is going to save a great many people that will be spiritual descendents of Abraham.  Just as the stars can represent true believers, they can also represent professed believers that never become saved.  For instance, it says in Isaiah 10:20-22:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon JEHOVAH, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.

Here, we find the reference to “the sand of the sea” and, yet, God adds something interesting: “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return.”  What doe He mean by that?  It is actually explained more clearly in the New Testament in Romans 9:27:

Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

By the way, this helps us understand what it means by “shall return” in Isaiah 10:22; it means to be saved.  Israel can be as the sand of the sea and, yet, only a remnant is saved out of Israel and that was true, historically, of national Israel.  At the point when God said He had reserved seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal, Israel was then a nation of as many as perhaps a couple million people.  Yet, only seven thousand, a remnant, had not bowed the knee to Baal.  There were relatively few saved in the Old Testament.

It was the same situation in the New Testament with the churches and congregations which were typified by Israel and when God spoke of Israel being “as the sand of the sea” but only a remnant being saved, it also applied to the churches.  And what do we find throughout the church age?  We find the same thing.  Just as Israel had within it mostly people that were not the true children of God, so, too, it was the same in the churches during the church age; individuals within the congregations would go astray in doctrines and develop other gospels.  Most were never saved, but a remnant, the elect, were saved and God speaks of them as the “firstfruits” that were saved in the churches and congregations of the world during the church age.  God did save a remnant out of the whole of Israel and out of the whole of the corporate church and both are typified by the language of “the sand of the sea.” 

Just think about when God ended the church age in 1988 and for the 23-year period after that censuses indicated that there were about two billion professed Christians in the world and the overwhelming majority of them stayed within the churches and congregations, so about two billion out of around seven billion people in the world were “professed Christians,” or one third of the total world population.  That is an enormous number of people, so you can see why the term “the sand of the sea” is a good picture of these vast numbers of people.  Yet, only a remnant was saved. 

God opened the Scriptures at the time of the end to reveal the end of the church age and to begin the process of separating the wheat from the tares and the remnant from the multitudes.  When God did this, how many people in the churches left their congregations?  There were just a few or just a remnant, because that was all the elect that were in her to begin with and the rest did not have ears to hear; it made no sense to them to “flee Judea” and they could not relate that to fleeing the churches.  They could not relate to the command to “flee to the mountain,” and they would say, “What mountain are you talking about?”  This is because they think naturally or carnally and they do not understand spiritual concepts, for the most part.  Of course, we know that some unsaved people did come out and God has further testing for them in this time of judgment, but the process was under way and God separated the wheat from the tares in the congregations until, finally, by May 21, 2011 it was just the tares that remained in the churches; God could wrap them up in one neat bundle for burning and the spiritual fire that He lit in His anger on May 21, 2011 at the beginning of judgment on the world devoured all the unsaved within the churches.  They were “Magog,” the forces of Satan and Satan, too, was devoured on that day; “Gog and Magog” were devoured by the spiritual fire of Judgment Day.

By the way, at the end of verse Revelation 20:8 where it says, “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea,” remember the Lord Jesus gave us the parable concerning those that build their house upon the sand rather than upon the rock.  Then the storm came and the house built upon the sand collapses and is destroyed and we can know that God has in view the corporate church, typified by “the sand of the sea,” because many people trusted in their churches.  They trusted in their pastor, their pope or their bishop, when they really needed to trust Christ and the Word of God.  Yet, they trusted their church and they built their house upon the sand and it was a faulty foundation that the Day of Judgment revealed against all those that remained in the churches.  They did not trust the Lord Jesus or the Word of God.

Then speaking of “Gog and Magog” or Satan and his forces, it says in Revelation 20:9:

And they went up on the breadth of the earth…

As far as this phrase “breadth of the earth,” the only thing I could find that comes close to it is in Habakkuk 1:6:

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.

Here, God is making reference to the Babylonians and the king of Babylon coming against Judah of old that typified the churches.  God raised them up, just as God was the one that loosed Satan and allowed Satan to gather his forces, as Gog and Magog came against the camp of the saints.  Here we read that they marched through the “breadth of the land,” and “land” is often used to represent the earth, so it is a picture of a great army on the march and they are spread across the earth and there is no way to escape them.  That is what this language in Revelation 20:9 is saying, when it says, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth.”

Then it says in Revelation 20:9:

… and compassed the camp of the saints about…

The word “compassed” is found in another significant passage in Luke, chapter 21, which is the parallel chapter to Matthew 24 that looks at the Great Tribulation and the end of the world.  God says in Luke 21:20-21:

And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.

Spiritually, this is speaking of the judgment upon the churches and it is being illustrated by Jerusalem being “compassed with armies.”  The Babylonians were round about Jerusalem and, historically, they did besiege Jerusalem for a time.  But it is Satan and the unsaved of the nations of the world that came against the corporate church that is represented by Jerusalem and the “camp of the saints.”  Notice it said in Revelation 20:9: “and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.”  What is the beloved city, but Jerusalem?  Jerusalem is compassed with armies and we can see that through the use of the word “compassed,” God directs us to another Scripture that helps us to understand the verse we are looking at in Revelation, chapter 20.

Again, it is the judgment on the churches and the Great Tribulation that is in view.  Once Satan is loosed, the churches are what he goes after and his assault is on the churches where the elect were found.  Satan is after the people of God and that is where they could be found for almost 2,000 years, so he comes against the churches and did battle with them just as the Babylonians came up against Judah and Jerusalem.  They did battle with them and overcame them.  Remember what it said back in Revelation, chapter 13, regarding the time the beast came up out of the sea, which was synonymous with Satan being loosed from his prison.  It says in Revelation 13:7:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

It was given to Satan, just as God raised up the Chaldeans in Habakkuk 1, verse 6.  Christ had the key to the bottomless pit and locked Satan up, but it was also required that Christ would open the bottomless pit and allow Satan to be loosed.  It is all being done by God.  God is the doer of these things, knowing that through the loosing of Satan He would bring destruction to the churches and it would be the judgment of God upon them.  God knew that when Satan was loosed, the evil in the world would increase tremendously in preparation for the final judgment of mankind.  It was all done by the allowance of God.

We look at the world and we think, “Things are out of control.  They have spun completely out of control.  It is as though God has no more part in this world.”  And, yet, it is by the will of God to allow the events of the Great Tribulation and the events of Judgment Day to unfold and to allow the sinfulness of the churches as part of their judgment and to allow the sinfulness of the world as part of its judgment.  It is an awful and terrible judgment when the world is allowed to cast off the teachings of God concerning the Sunday Sabbath, abortion and the marriage relationship.  It is a terrible judgment upon God because the most blessed condition would be to do it God’s way and the more man does things God’s way the more blessed he is in his family, in society and in this nation.  He is blessed to a great extent, even if he is not saved.  The opposite is true if he fails to do it God’s way.  He is cursed and, ultimately, more miserable.  Just look at the world.  When people call evil “good” and when they do the opposite of what God commands, look at the world they have wrought and the things that are going on today.  Are people happier?  Are they enjoying their lives more?  No, they are not and they are more miserable now than ever.  They are unhappy and you can see it all around us and, yet, they are doing what they please.  They have no fear of God, but that does not bring them contentment, peace, love or anything good.  It is actually a terrible thing, but it is part of Christ’s judgment on the world as He rules with a rod of iron.