Revelation you can Understand
A Layman's Interpretation, Understanding

Bible Revelation Chapter 20

Revelation 20 is clearly a climax concerning the fact that for thousands of years God has told mankind a day was going to happen where they will have to come before God and give an account of their lives while they were on the earth. This chapter makes a mockery of any person who think themselves and who teach people that when they die and everything they did is gone, they are gone never to heard of again. I have no hesitation in saying it is absurd to think that in spite of what the Bible tells you that people still say, God is lying.¹¹ God's word has not changed, ever, what God has said is as valid today and it was in the past, so that when the final day of Judgement arrives what God has said is valid. Later in the chapter we will look at the judgement hour when the books are opened.
 

Then John saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into a pit...that he should not deceive the nations...then to be loosed for a short period..
There are many views of what is meant by being a thousand years in the pit. For me it makes a lot of sense to listen to Jesus who said he saw Satan falling from heaven to the earth and that at that time God curbed Satan's activity, by curbing I mean he has been bound so that the Christians could plunder the earth. That is, as we preach the Gospel Satan looses souls because when people respond and accept Jesus Christ they are torn away from Satan and go into the kingdom of God.. As Jesus said, “...how can you enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless you first bound the strong man...”¹ So at Jesus time, the Christian era of the Church era, Satan has been bound and from then millions upon millions of people have gone from Satan's house into God's house. To me this concept makes a lot of sense, and as we discover that finally at the end of time Satan, Dragon is let out of the pit for a while as he amounts the final great battle we have been discussing in this book Bible Revelation.

To put together Revelation 20 : 4-7 we need to look at what we know. Because we need to consider this statement “..the rest of the dead did not come to life till after the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection, for such the second death has no power but they are priests to God and they shall reign with him a thousand years.

People are priests of God and of Christs. That is us today, we are priests to God as we are told in Revelation 1 : 5-6, “...has freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God...”
Now depending on your Theologian Paradigm as to whether :
you are asleep when you die,
 or
whether you are awake, simply you close your eyes and you wake with Jesus Christ. ²
I will simply make this scenario and later a detail analysis will be done in my publication which you can obtain about October. Jesus said to Martha, after Martha said I know I will see Lazarus at the resurrection but in response to her Jesus was fixing a problem Martha had about what the resurrection means, so Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die...”³ Here in this chapter 20 I believe when you die, your spirit , soul leaves your body and then you receive the house prepared by God.⁴

Now the premise I have stated, so John saw thrones and seated on them were those whom judgement was committed. These people on the thrones could be the twenty four elders we visited in other chapters.⁵ But I guess the thrones could be less or more we are not told here. But I guess we can speculated, but we do see the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received the mark on their foreheads, or their hands. We did discover in Revelation 7 the angels were to seal those who belong to God to have a mark on their forehead. We decided at that time,  here we could be talking about all Christians who come into the kingdom of God and the seal probably is the Holy Spirit that is in every true Christian. And as we thought about that the thousand years is the time of Jesus, to today and tomorrow till the Judgement day. If that is the case it is true Blessed those who participate in the first resurrection, which those Christians yesterday, today and tomorrow. For us there is no fear of the second death as we are told in Revelation 2 :11, “...He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death.”
There is a possibility that verse 5 which says, The rest of the dead did not come to life till the thousand years were ended is dealing with those maybe in Hades or in heaven because really as far as we are concerned in this world,  life on earth they are asleep or dead. Verse 5 probably needs more study to full understand it.

Now Revelation 20 : 7-10 is a rerun of what we have discussed in chapter 13. If you like chapter 13 is the detail of the event and here chapter 12 . 12 : 7-10 is a simple framework , because Satan was loosed for a short period which is at the end of the Christian era, how long Satan is loosed is speculative it can be days, weeks months, maybe the 42 months, three half years mentioned in chapter 13 : 5 God calls it a short period. Satan was defeated. Before going any further consider here in chapter 20 : 10 Satan had deceived all those who helped him as we are told in verse 8 so Satan let loose started to deceive all the nations and then he gathers together a huge number their number like the sand of the sea and marched up over the broad earth, surrounded the beloved city. The city is Jerusalem. Clearly not a spiritual Jerusalem, Zion because Satan had been tossed out of heaven and was on our earth. Those who helped Satan can be those ten nations and the two nations in chapter 12. So the kings, nations were clearly deceived and the battle was happening, but God interfered and fire came from heaven and consumed them. Being the last great battle you can imagine Satan having all stops out to destroy God's plan, this would have been Satan's most important battle, so he would have had all his people, angels and people in the battle. There is a possibility Satan could have thought he could win. That of course is speculative, but we know the end because God decimates the enormous army which could be in the millions, probably the greatest army ever gathered on the face of the earth.

So finally Satan has been completely removed from the scene “...and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the prophet were and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
                     We have a picture of the lake of fire, hell so we picture a pit full of souls tormented by fire, dying of thirst, but the picture can be completely wrong. The picture given in the Bible can be simply symbols, the make up of hell that we have, can be different to the actual, except ,we know it is a place for us not to go to, because we will be separate from God.
                     What torment is, what the fire is we can leave it to God. God has told all of mankind, he wants mankind to obey his words, he wants all mankind to reach out to Jesus because he sent his own son into the world. His son was crucified, Even though, he was hundred percent free from sin, His son paid the penalty for sin to those who reach out to him and his son forgives peoples sins, he gives them eternal life, and when they die they are in fact in heaven,    so they need not fear  the terrible events where God's judgement is handed out to those who completely reject Jesus.
                  On top of that Satan has his own agenda as he tried to dislodge God from his thrown ,as he tried in the beginning before the world created. And other events instigated by the Devil to destroy God's plan.⁶ Fortunately for us , Satan is to be defeated as we see in Revelation. As far as God is concerned Satan has already been defeated where Jesus died for us, he rose from the dead, and he went into heaven. God said to his son, “Sit at my right hand until your enemies become his footstool.”⁷ Now in chapter 20 : 10 it has happened, Satan has been removed here in Bible Revelation chapter 20.

Probably, verses 11-15 of chapter 20 is the most famous scene in all history of mankind. This scene has been sitting there for almost two thousand years, yet most of mankind has completely corrupted what is going to happen at the end of mankind history. There is an end. So finally there is a white throne all of mankind comes before God to give an account of their lives while they were on the earth. Those who came to Jesus and have had their sins forgiven go into eternal life in heaven, those who rejected Jesus Christ join Satan in hell in the lake of fire. Those who reject Jesus Christ experience the second death. Jesus has clearly warned people not to disregard what God has to say. Jesus said, “I will tell you who to fear, fear God who after he killed can toss you into hell” ⁸ and then even back further in time, in Ecclesiastes written approx 250 BC. “The end of the matter; all has been heard, Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of a person who lives. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether it be good or bad.”⁹ These statements made here are famous particularly in the Christian world. More then a hundred million Bibles  are sold each year and then you add extracts millions more each year. So you can only imagine a figure that is so large that Billions of Bible and extracts are sold or handed out over the years and all these probably had those famous texts I have quoted and there are also warning right throughout the Bible warning people that when they die they will have to give and account to God.

So now it had happened, A future time in Revelation God has shown us the actual future time, now. So there it was all people before God, even those who died were brought up from Hades to stand before the judge. The books were opened., then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. There are two things we now know. At the end of time death is gone, people dyeing which is the norm in our society will no longer have the spectre of death around them. Death is considered an enemy of Jesus Christ. ¹⁰ And Hades is the place that people have gone when they died. As I have said before Christians when they die go to be with Jesus.¹¹ But the people who reject Jesus Christ go into Hades a place of the dead. As the rich man found out as he was “...in Hades being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham...”¹² so the end has become and “...if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”¹³    those who rejected Jesus were in Hades
Those who were written in the book of life were those who accepted Jesus Christ are are with Jesus.     Where were the Christians? As I said,  I believe when your body goes to the grave you the real person the soul goes to Jesus/ God and you receive a body, so you are in heaven. Read these few words in Thessalonians, “But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep ¹⁴ that you may not grieve as others that have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”¹⁵ Did you understand what this text was saying. At the end at the appearing of Jesus Christ God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep, the word asleep is only used for us, yes, as far as our world is concerned you die or go to asleep, but in fact you are really with God and when the great day arrives when Jesus is revealed to the whole world God will bring you from heaven to the great event. My premise is, when you are a Christian you will never die, there will not be a period you will be asleep, or unconscious, if that happens, then you have died. Jesus said, "If you believe in me you will not see death, die." God promises his people you have eternal life, now, not after you die. Another famous text is John 3: 16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. So my friend as a Christian you have eternal life.¹⁶
In the next chapter 21 and 22 we see God's promise being delivered for those who are the children of God, those who belong to Jesus Christ.

Bible Revelation 21, we see the fulfilling a the great promise which is: 
We will look at chapter 21 and 22 together.
John saw a new heaven and a new earth because the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. Clearly these words in verse 1 tells you the old earth is gone and the sea no longer exist and there is a new heaven and earth. Previous areas I have shown other texts that show the world is to blow up literally with a noise and dissolved. So we are talking about all things new. To make the point a little clearer, the old earth really is a ball with fire inside and has a limit time it will not last forever, even the sun will die eventually, The universe is expanding and one day it will go the other direction so we know our worlds life is limited in years.

The new world will last for ever, this new heaven and the earth is God's prophecy, Jesus said, “It is easier for the earth to pass away then for a single Jot, if you like, not even a dot will be missing, because everything God has said will happen and this great event is given to us, to encourage us, to put up with the trials, to be strong, to become absolutely committed to Jesus Christ because you will walk in the new world, you will walk the streets where God will live, where righteousness is the norm, where you will see Jesus because he will be with you. You will see the people and the multitudes who have become a child of God. A wonderful place.

Bible  Revelation  Chapter 1   2 & 3  4  5  6   7   8  9  10  11 12  13 14  15&16 17&18 19 20  21&22

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Bible Revelation 20 Ancient Serpent, Dragon, Devil and Satan bound for 1000 years, thousand years, Satan loosed for a while, Great throne, Books opened all people judged for what they did. Death and Hades was tossed into the lake of fire.