And we're at chapter twenty this evening, the
book of the Revelation, chapter twenty, and you
can see from your notes that we're looking
at the first three verses, and that seems
a very short portion for the class this
evening.
And in these three short, shall I say
simple, verses, they're not arrayed themselves around these
verses, more battles about dispensational truth than anywhere
else in the Bible.
You see, the camp of the postmillennialists, as
they call themselves, they have planted their standard
in the ground here.
And of course, the amillennialists, they've brought their
forces to the first three verses of chapter
twenty.
And of course, the premillennialists have held the
fort here for a long time.
For those of you who don't know exactly
what I'm talking about, then I talk about
the postmillennialists.
The postmillennialists are the people who believe that
the coming of Christ to this earth is
after the millennials.
In fact, they tried to tell me that
we're in the millennial mouth of a millennial
in Ulster, I assure you.
I just can't understand the mentality that talks
like that.
Funny that when we get some of the
other boys on the other side, one of
them said to me the other day, he
says, you know, we're in the heart of
a great tribulation just now.
Well, he was sitting looking out of a
big Mercedes car, about three thousand cc, and
I happen to know that he's maybe got
two hundred thousand pounds in the bank.
And I said, there's a lot of books
to do with the tribulation you're getting.
They amuse me the way they talk, but
the postmillennialists believe that there will be no
coming of Christ until the millennial is passed,
and they argue that we're in it now.
But amillennialists, it simply means against the millennial,
anti-millennialists, they don't believe that there's any
such thing.
They don't believe that there's anything literal in
these three verses, and you'll see too much.
They tell me it's all spiritual, you know,
all the blessings that you talk about as
the millennial, they're all spiritual.
Well, we'll just see, won't we?
Because we're going to take it at us.
I'm a pre-millennialist.
I believe that Christ is coming very soon
to the air from his church, and I
believe that the moment that we rise to
meet the Lord in the air, then the
day of the Lord's wrath will begin on
this earth.
And there will soon come that period that's
called the Great Tribulation, and at the end
of the tribulation period, the Christ who came
to the air will come to the earth,
and in that day his feet shall stand
upon the Mount of Olives, and he'll take
the throne of his father David, and Jesus
shall reign, and the great millennial reign will
begin.
But you're going to find out tonight, as
you look at these three verses, just in
whatever way you would dare to interpret them,
they'll tell us what camp you're in, because
this is where they set the different camps,
and that we're going to see this evening.
You know, two weeks back, we were looking
at Christ's second coming to the earth, and
we contrasted it with Christ's first coming to
the earth.
And I said to you that when Christ
came the first time, Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners.
He came to deliver captives.
He came to declare God.
No man has seen God at any time,
the only begotten Son, he hath declared him.
And he didn't only come to deliver sinners,
and to declare God, he came to destroy
the works of the devil, and just watch
it, the works of the devil.
He also came to demonstrate how believers should
live in this planet, when they have trusted
Christ.
He left us an example that we should
follow in a sense.
And we contrasted the first coming to the
earth with the second coming to the earth.
Could we differentiate between the first coming to
the earth and the second coming to the
earth, and the coming to the earth?
But when we contrast the first coming to
the earth to deliver and declare and to
demonstrate how we should live and destroy the
works of the devil, we found out that
when he will come the second time to
this earth, that he's coming to deal with
sinners.
He's coming to make war, we found out.
Let's go back to chapter 19, where we
were the other day.
Verse 11, John speaking, said, And I saw,
I like the way John does this, I
saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse,
and he which doth upon him is called
Faithful and True, capital F, capital T, you
can't miss who this is.
And in righteousness he doth judge and make
war, he's coming to make war.
Let's get that bit settled.
Well, this is quite different from the first
coming to earth.
He came to save the first time.
Now, it's not wooing men, it's warring with
nations, coming to make war.
Then John describes him and what he looks
like and all the rest of it, and
he said this, verse 15, Out of his
mouth brought a sharp sword, that with it
he should smite the nations.
You know, that's not saving them, that's smiting
them, you should see the difference.
He's not coming to woo, he's coming to
war, he's not coming to save, he's coming
to smite.
Do you see what it says in that
middle of the verse, 15?
And he shall rule them, who, the nations,
with a rod of iron.
You know, he's not coming to rest you
now, he's coming to rule.
I think that you can see that quite
clearly, it's quite different, isn't it?
You see, we were looking last week at
the great portion he read out of Isaiah
61.
Let's just read it over again for the
sake of the young people.
Let's go to Luke's gospel, chapter 4, please.
Luke's gospel, chapter 4, verse 16.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had
been brought up.
Isn't that a great phrase, you know?
If you could only see the place, what
a miserable, stinky, foul it is.
Yes, that's where he was brought up.
And as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
I think that's great that it should be
written like that.
The synagogue wasn't always a great place, you
know, there was a lot of old Pharisees
and hypocrites about it, like some of the
professing churches I know.
But you don't stay at home because there
are hypocrites there.
Well, the Lord didn't stay at home, he's
more holy than you are.
As his custom was, he just went to
the synagogue on the Sabbath day, never mind
about the hypocrites, and stood up for to
read.
This was the privilege in some of the
synagogues.
And there was delivered unto him the book
of the prophet Isaiah.
It's just the Greek way of saying Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book, he
found the place where it was written.
You know, it was a long scroll they
gave him, and there wasn't chapters and verses.
This was done much later.
And you know, he could open the scroll
and roll it out, and he knew all
about it.
He found the place where it was written.
Actually, we know it now as Isaiah 61
and verse 1.
And here's what it says there, the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to
the poor.
He hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set
up liberty then that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord.
And mark the word Lord, because that's when
he stopped reading.
And he closed the book.
Just like that.
Now, let's go through Isaiah 61 and just
see this for ourselves.
The prophecy of Isaiah 61, and you'll notice
that he read the first verse.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon
me, because he has anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek.
He has sent me to bind up the
broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them
that are bound, should proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord.
And he shut the book.
Now, it's not the end of the sentence,
is it?
I did a thing like that, some of
the old grammarians rant me, all the boys
who think they know everything.
They would say, my dear, what's he up
now?
Well, he never went to school, he does
not.
Ah, well, the Lord, sometimes the way you
tittle tattle just shows me your ignorance.
But the Lord didn't make any mistake or
anything, you know.
He knew where to stop.
When he came the first time, he came
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to
open the prison to them that are bound,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
And the Lord said, come on, he stopped.
Because he couldn't read this.
And the day of vengeance.
Oh, no, it hadn't come up at that
time.
The day of vengeance belongs to another dispensation
deal.
And the boys who tried to argue with
me about dispensations don't know why he stopped.
The day of vengeance is different altogether.
And when he comes the second time, he
can read the rest of it.
Because he's coming to war then.
He's coming to smite them.
He's coming to rule the nations with a
rod of iron.
It will be the day of vengeance.
What a day it will be.
Terrible day.
I would have thought that would have stopped
everybody who argues against dispensation, who lives on
the trick or two.
But you can't teach some of them.
Surely the master's trying to tell us something.
Last Tuesday in the class, we were looking
at the day of vengeance is fully come.
And we were in chapter 19, and we're
back there just now.
Chapter 19.
And the Lord is coming to earth, and
he's coming to war, and he's coming to
smite the nations, and he's coming to rule
them with a rod of iron.
And at verse 19, John said, and I
saw the beast, the Antichrist, and the kings
of the earth.
And there is a mess of kings.
The kings of the earth are all united
there.
And their armies gathered together to make war
against him that's up on the horse.
And I said the audacity of the people.
Mr. Edgar said to me, every time you
said audacity, I said to myself, stupidity.
I think that was the better word.
Because it's a stupid thing to do, to
make war with a king of kings.
And you'll find that they gathered together to
make war against him that sat on the
horse, and against his army.
And you'll notice this, the beast was taken.
Oh, just lifted like a, shot.
And with him the false prophet that wrought
miracles before him, and what's the word, miracles?
With which he deceived them that have received
the mark of the beast, and them that
worship his image.
And the Lord just lifted these two, and
they were cast alive.
Oh, there's no tribunal or anything.
There is no lower court and higher court
and super court here.
Just lifts them and throws them into the,
into the lake of fire.
You see, it's the day of vengeance now.
Have you got that?
Yes, you'll find from your notes that there
was vengeance upon the unclean beast, and vengeance
upon the unreal prophet.
And although the chapter has a division there,
I don't think it should have, but that
doesn't matter.
It begins tonight, and I saw an angel
come down from heaven, having the key of
the bottomless pit.
He laid hold on the dragon, that old
serpent, and it's vengeance for him too.
Because the day of vengeance, he's coming to
make war.
He's coming to smite these unclean nations.
He's coming to deal with this unclean prophet,
or this unreal prophet, this unclean beast.
And now this unholy devil has come to
deal with him.
This is the time when the devil is
going to be banished from this earth for
a thousand years.
That's where the arguments begin, isn't it?
That's exactly.
But we want to do something for the
young people tonight, before we get into the
depths of this.
I want to take you through the whole
history of the devil, from his creation.
Let's go back to Ezekiel 28.
Just mark these down beside these headings.
I haven't room all the time for everything
without the creation of Lucifer, because he wasn't
created the devil, and he wasn't created Satan.
Oh no, he was Lucifer.
He was son of the morning.
We're at Ezekiel 28, verse 11.
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, son of man, that's the way
God always talked to Ezekiel.
And he's telling him, get up and lamentation
upon the king of Tyrus.
And say unto him, thus, Tyrus, and say
unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou
singest of the son, full of wisdom, and
perfect in beauty.
You know this person of every age is
called the king of Tyrus, and if you
go back into history there was no such
person.
But he was the person who was the
sum total of wisdom, full of wisdom, and
the sum total of beauty.
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You know that's tremendous, isn't it?
Not many of us have qualifications like that.
Usually you'll find the fellow who's got brains,
he's got no face at all.
Some of you can take comfort, and some
of you know what I'm talking about.
And usually, you know, when you get a
pretty face, a very pretty face, a false
face, you can be pretty sure that inside
the head there's as much in a balloon.
You know what John McNeill did once?
He went to Oxford.
He's a terrible character, you know, went to
preach at Oxford, and before all these great
lads and lasses at Oxford, he preached on
David slaying Goliath, Astoria.
And two of these Oxford dons thought to
themselves at the end of the meeting we'll
have a chat over this whole thing.
So they came up round and said, hello
Mr McNeill, that was a great, great message.
We never heard preaching like that in here
before.
That was really some guy.
He said, but surely you don't believe this
Mr McNeill.
You don't believe that a real lad threw
a stone and it entered into the giant's
head and fell.
You don't believe that.
And old McNeill laughed and said, son, if
the giant's head had been as soft as
yours, I'd snowball with it.
I never tried to take it out on
an old preacher, you know, there are some
of them dead right.
But here are qualifications.
And the person was full of wisdom and
perfect in beauty.
And then this thing is said of this
person, thou hast been in Eden, the garden
of God.
Now don't go too quick with that.
It says every precious stone was thy coupling,
the sardus, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl,
the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald,
the caribuncle and gold.
The workmanship of thy tablets and of thy
pipes were prepared in thee in the day
that thou wast created.
This is the created being we're looking at.
A created being who was full of wisdom
and perfect in beauty, who was covered with
all this glory.
That's who we're looking.
Someone who had been in Eden, the garden
of God.
Of course some of the jump to this
and say that's right the devil came.
I'll tell you he never came to the
garden of God like this.
He came like a serpent.
This is some kind of Eden.
This is a way before that, you know.
This is when the devil was created and
he was placed in the garden of God
in all his glory.
This is what we're looking at.
Don't jump the gun now.
I was talking to some of these evolutionists
the other day and I was reading this
to them that he was created in all
his glory, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty
and a lot of other things that I
see here.
I said now where did he come from?
Because this was before the monkeys came at
all.
Now when you take evolution backwards we get
in a bit of a fix don't we?
Where did he come from?
He wasn't evolved from a monkey.
There were no monkeys.
Oh no, he was created is the word,
sir.
In the garden.
But thou was created.
Yes, he was created.
Make no mistakes about it.
So that's his creation, isn't it, sir?
It says this in verse 14, thou art
the anointed cherub.
He was one of the cherubims.
This was his occupation.
Have you got those two things now in
your notes?
In Ezekiel you can see his creation and
his occupation.
Let's go to Isaiah chapter 14, please.
Prophecy of Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 12
says, how art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning.
That's the character we're thinking about.
But we're thinking about his form now.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground
which did weaken the nations?
For thou hast said in thy heart, what
say I wills, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God.
And when we use the word stars there,
we're not thinking about the twinkle, twinkle in
the sky.
We're thinking about the angels.
And he's gone to exalt his throne above
the angels.
I will sit also upon the mount of
the congregation in the sight of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds.
I will be like the most high.
Ah, that's the day that he rebelled.
That's the rebellion.
God created him.
God gave him wisdom.
God gave him beauty.
God gave him the greatest job in heaven,
the anointed cherub that covereth the throne of
God.
And because of his exalted position, this tribe
entered and sin entered.
And he said, I will be like the
most high.
I'll be like God.
I'll take it all.
That was his rebellion.
Of course, he's cast down now.
And when God created man, because he created
him too, in the day that God created
them, male and female created he then.
And the old devil came to retaliate.
Ah, but he's the serpent now.
You can see the creation of Lucifer and
the occupation and the rebellion, but it's the
retaliation of the serpent now.
The old serpent comes.
You know what he came for?
I hope you do.
He came to deceive.
I need the CDs to keep that in
the back of your mind as we get
into the subject now.
Because you'll find as you go right through
the scriptures that his indignation was set against
everything that God chose.
When God chose Israel to bring Christ to
this world, the old serpent was against Israel.
When God's Son was born, why, he tried
to slay the baby.
Right down through the years, you can see
the indignation of the devil.
And when Christ died on Calvary and stepped
into death and entered into death, it was
by death that he destroyed him, or paralyzed
him, who had the power of death.
That was his ruination, Calvary was his ruination.
Just a little bit of the history of
the devil for you young ones.
As you got it now, in Ezekiel you
can see the creation of Lucifer and the
occupation of Lucifer.
In Isaiah 14, you can see the rebellion
of Lucifer.
In Genesis 3, you can see the retaliation
of the serpent.
If you go through the scriptures and look
only at Israel and Christ, there are many
others of course, you can see the indignation
of the devil.
If you go to Calvary, you'll see the
ruination, for the serpent's head was crushed.
Now we're coming to the place tonight where
you see the deportation.
You know, from the day that Adam was
made to this moment, he's always been around
somewhere.
But he's going to be taken out of
the scene altogether for a thousand years.
But there are many arguments, we must face
the arguments.
Let's go to Revelation chapter 20 and do
it properly now.
You know, I was talking to some of
these characters who argue with me, bless them,
and one of them said to me, you
know there's nothing literal here at all.
Millennialists don't believe in the literal interpretation of
the scriptures, do you don't?
All spiritual with you.
All right now, I'm taking you on now.
So I read to this character, fun for
me reading to a boy like that, small
boy.
I says and it says, and I saw
through the eye.
It's John, isn't it?
He's literal, sure.
You're not telling me he wasn't there.
Surely John's literal enough for you, isn't he?
I'll tell you what's more, you know.
It's just a follow-on of what he'd
been saying.
Go back to 19 and do it with
me.
See verse 11, and I saw, that's how
that begins.
Give me a ballad over there.
Tell me that you knew who it was
then.
You see verse 17, and I saw an
angel standing in the sun.
You hadn't any bother with that, sure you
hadn't.
There was no thousand years in that bit
that didn't bother you then.
See verse 19, and I saw the beast.
Yes, he saw the beast taken and the
prophet taken.
And then he says in verse 20, and
I saw an angel.
Tell me this now, is the angel not
the truth?
All right then, spiritualize it for me.
I think you'll have to accept it's an
angel or you'll be in bother.
I think you'll have to accept that it's
the apostle and it's an angel.
Would you dare to say it's not a
literal?
You'll need to back it up a wee
bit.
And I saw an angel come down from
heaven.
Heaven not the truth.
Coming down from heaven, having the key.
And this is a bit of a problem.
I'll leave the key to the side for
a second and you'll see what I'll do
with it.
I'll not run away from it.
Having the key of the bottomless pit.
Is this not the literal place of the
fellow I was talking to?
He said, no, no, no, you're going to
his home.
I said, well, all right, I said, we'll
have to do it out for you.
Let's go back to chapter 9, Revelation 9,
Revelation 9.
And the fifth angel pounded, and I saw
a star fall from heaven.
It's the same old word you know.
It's an angel falling down from heaven onto
the earth, onto him.
This would give you the clue.
To whom?
It's not a star, you know.
It's a him, a person, with given the
key of the bottomless pit.
And then the pit's opened, you know, and
these demons come out.
And we have had a night with them.
And you know, they can be commanded, says
in verse 4, and it was commanded them.
And they understand, you know, to them it
was given, verse 5, that they should not
kill them, but that they should be commended
five months.
And it goes right on down until it
comes to verse 11, talking about these demons.
And they had a king over them, which
is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose
name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon.
Is this not a person?
You're like to spiritualize it for me.
My, you would sit looking at it a
long time, wouldn't you?
All the bottomless pit's real.
Told at this moment with demons and the
black art before law, the way things are
happening in Ulster, you would think some of
them had escaped already.
All the bottomless pit is real enough.
Take no mistakes about it.
Let's go back to 20 again now.
This one, and I saw an angel come
down from heaven having the key of the
bottomless pit, and the great chain in his
hand.
Oh, how they love to talk about this.
Leave it with the key for a minute
or two, and we'll come back and do
it properly.
And the angel, he laid hold on the
dragon, that old serpent which is the devil
and Satan.
Is he not the devil?
Surely this is the devil.
Surely it's a real angel, this is a
real devil.
He laid hold on him.
What a moment that will be when God
gives an angel power to take the hold
of the devil and shake him.
Must be a very select angel.
I wouldn't be fit for the job, but
I would like to tackle it, because I
was shaken for a good long while.
But he's laying hold on the dragon, and
bound him a thousand years, and they say,
don't believe it.
I don't believe a word of it.
But we'll see
in a moment.
Watch it, laid hold on him, bound him,
cast him.
Isn't that great?
Cast him into the bottomless pit, shook him,
shook him up, set a seal upon him.
By this angel's getting about the job, he
laid hold on him.
He bound him, he cast him, he set
him up, he set a seal upon him.
And now for this reason, this is why
this bit takes place, that he, the devil,
should deceive the nations no matter what.
Tell me this, are the nations not literal?
Well, I don't know how you argue sometimes.
This big fellow standing at my side, who
has had all the schooling that this country
can give him, he says there's nothing that,
my dear friend, I wonder what goes on
in his, in their minds.
Oh, to keep an erroneous doctrine.
That's what it's for.
Surely the nations are literal.
Now this is what I did with him.
I said, all right, you don't believe a
word of this, you don't believe the thousand
years, you don't believe that this is just
the way that I'm seeing it.
Do you agree that whatever happens to you,
it happens that the old devil should not
deceive the nations anymore?
Are we agreed on that?
And we agreed on that.
He said, you see, what I believe is
that the way back at Calvary he was
bound, fair enough now, tell me the rest
of it, he was bound the way back
at Calvary that he should deceive the nations
no more.
From Calvary to now has he not deceived
anybody?
Because that's what you're, that's what you're professing.
If you remain millennialist, that's what you're trying
to say.
You're trying to say that he was bound
back at Calvary so that they won't be
able to deceive anybody anymore.
He hasn't deceived anybody from then till now.
So I did this with him.
I took him over to 2 Corinthians.
Would you mind going over there?
2 Corinthians and up the 11th chapter please.
2 Corinthians chapter 11.
And Paul's writing to these saints and he's
saying this to them in verse 1.
Would to God ye could bear with me
a little in my folly, and indeed bear
with me.
Or as it should be, and indeed ye
do bear with me.
For I am jealous over you with godly
jealousy.
For I have despised you to one husband
that I may present you as a just
virgin to Christ.
But I fear, Paul was afraid of something,
lest by any means of the serpent beguiled
ease through his subtle faith.
So your mind could be corrupted.
What was he afraid of, of the devil
which teamed up and he couldn't deceive anybody?
Well let me tell this class that the
word beguiled there is a very wonderful Greek
word.
It's exipati.
Some Greek scholars in the class know more
about it than I do.
It's the Greek word exipati.
And it's the word that's rendered beguiled here,
but it's the word that's rendered deceived there.
For it's beguiled and deceived the same thing.
In fact he said he wasn't allowed to
deceive anymore.
You tell me he's bountiful that he can't
deceive.
If Paul knew as much as you knew
he wouldn't have been so afraid would he?
Happens to be that Paul didn't know what
you're trying to say.
Happens to be that Paul was afraid of
the devil doing the same with the saints
as he had done with ease.
And for any sort of second-hand modernist
that might be in this class, let me
tell you that Paul believed that the serpent
beguiled him.
Yes, you don't believe Genesis chapter 3 until
I knew it there all right.
And it happens to be inspired.
The Holy Ghost believes it too.
Yes, Paul was afraid that the old devil
would steal this.
He wasn't bound then.
Now, let's have a look at this.
See Corinthians, we're at 2nd Corinthians, let's go
back to chapter 4, 2nd Corinthians 4.
Paul's talking about the gospel here, and he
says in verse 3, But if our gospel
be hid, it is hid for them that
are lost, in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not.
Is this not the devil at his diabolical
work of deceiving?
Is it not?
That's not what you told me he was
locked up.
I'm telling you Paul didn't believe it.
And most certainly neither do I.
Oh no, I don't think that would work.
Let's go to Acts chapter 5.
Maybe it comes out clearer there.
The Acts of the Apostles chapter 5.
It's the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
Verse 1, But a certain man named Ananias
with Sapphira his wife sold the possession, kept
back part of the price, kept a bit
of the money.
His wife also bequeathed to him, and brought
a certain part, and laid it at the
apostles' feet, pretending it was the whole sum.
But Peter said, because Peter had the gift
of discerning of spirits, Peter said, Ananias, why
hast thyself sold thine heart to lie to
the Holy Ghost?
Is the devil not abroad then?
That you told me he was tied up.
That you told me he was tied up
that he would deceive the nations no more.
I think you'd better rethink it.
Because this is long after Calvary I can
tell you.
And these are two believers in the church,
and the old devil has deceived them to
bring this story of this money.
And now Peter knows the whole story.
He says, Why hast thyself sold thine heart
to lie to the Holy Ghost?
I don't think there's any problem about this
at all.
Let's go to 2 Timothy chapter 3.
2 Timothy, and we're at the third chapter.
You know, we're talking about the last days
of church history here, verse 1.
Christ knew also that in the last days
perilous times shall come.
He's writing to Timothy, you know, perilous times
shall come for the church.
And I believe that with all my heart.
Because I don't think that the church is
going to go through the great tribulation or
anything like that.
I think that the great tribulation, of course,
is the wrath of God against wicked men.
But I believe that tribulation is the wrath
of wicked men against good men.
And it may come to us in this
part of this island.
Sometimes when I listen to the TV I
wouldn't hardly know what's going on.
You wouldn't know what he's got one day
or another.
He seems to have got himself into a
bit of a muddle tonight anyway.
Never mind, we don't need to discuss it.
But this is something that's sure, that in
the last days perilous times shall come for
believers.
And I'll tell you where they come from.
They'll come from men.
For men, there's a lot of them around,
shall be lovers of their own selves.
Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers.
There is a big word for you.
My dear friends, you could preach for a
night on that just now, and you'd no
bother getting an administration reader.
False accusers, incontinent, fierce.
Look at this wee bit, despisers of those
that are good.
You just take your stand for the Lord.
You just live godly in Christ Jesus, do
you see?
My dear friend, you're in for trouble.
You know, they're traitors, haughty, high-minded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God.
And at the same time, although the word
unholy is here, although the word blasphemers are
here, although the phrase despisers of those that
are good is here, yet they're going to
have a form of godliness, won't they now?
So the ecumenical movement will have a form
of godliness, and there's more blasphemers in it
than anywhere else.
And I think you know the day's fast
coming when they're going to despise those that
are good.
Who's to blame us for keeping back this
bandwagon of theirs?
They're going to have a form of godliness.
But all the time these old modernists are
going to deny the power thereof.
I'm not having prayer meetings three or four
times on a Sunday morning.
But the wee word for the Christians there,
from such turn away.
You get it?
Because if you went to school at all,
you couldn't miss it, could you?
The kids know what it means, from such
turn away.
Get out.
That's not unity.
That's separation.
That's getting out and staying out.
Are you stuck in an old church where
they're tearing up the book, and tearing up
the hymn book, and denying Christ and the
power of God, are you?
Get out!
That's what God says to you.
There's there a long time, and if I'm
rubbing it into you, that's what God wants
them to be, these last days.
And I'll tell you more about these men.
It says, verse 13, it says, but evil
men and seducers shall wreck worse and worse,
deceiving men.
That's this wee bit.
And being deceived.
Did you get that?
So, if they're evil men to begin with,
and they're wrecking worse and worse, and they're
deceiving, who's deceiving them?
And being deceived, says the arch deceiver, he's
not tied up in a knot at all.
He's knocking around.
One young fellow said to me once, very
boldly, he said, you know, you don't know.
My, when he shakes the hand like that
of me, I feel like licking them and
waving them around my head.
The grace of God saves some of these
guys.
He says, you know, you don't know that
Christ was bound at Calvary, that the devil
was bound at Calvary through the work of
Calvary.
I said, are you thinking about Revelation 22?
He said, certainly.
And he was bound by Calvary there one
day.
Now, I said, oh, read Revelation 22.
You, let me read it again now, carefully.
It's only a verse or two.
There's a lot of things in it, but
you need to be careful with it.
Talks about this angel casting the devil into
the bottomless pit and shut him up and
set the seal upon him that he should
deceive the nations no more till the thousand
years should be fulfilled.
And after that, after that, he must be
loosed a little thing.
And he said, are you telling me, son,
that Calvary bound him?
He said, yes.
I said, when he's loosed, are you going
to undo Calvary?
You'll have to answer now.
Is Calvary bound him?
Tell me, is Calvary undone?
Do you dare to talk to me about
the work of Calvary ever being undone?
My, you're all very fanatical.
You could be done with a doctrine like
that.
Oh, no.
When I think of the post-millennialists, the
boys who believe that Christ will come after
the millennials, at the end of the age,
when there'll be a universal resurrection and universal
judgment, when I say, why are they going
to loose the devil after all that?
He doesn't know.
He hasn't any clue to that.
He's been working the thing all wrong.
And the amillennialists, they can't think that they'll
have to undo Calvary to work everything out.
And the post-millennialists have no answer.
If everything's going to end with a clap
of your hands, when will you let the
devil loose again?
It won't work, will it?
No, it's not going to work.
I think that looking at these few verses
carefully, you could do this yourself now.
Who is banished?
That old serpent, the devil, and Satan.
Where is he banished to?
The bottomless pit.
Why is he banished?
That he should deceive the nations no more.
For how long is he banished?
The book says, till the thousand years should
be fulfilled.
When will the banishment end?
When the thousand years are expired.
I'll be going on from there next week,
and we'll see more about this millennial vein,
this thousand years.
Singing a good old hymn tonight, 1084.
Jesus shall reign, where'er he come, doth
his successive journeys run.
Ten hundred and eighty-four weeks.
You know, when I was looking at this
again, I noticed this.
John says, And I saw an angel come
down from heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit, and a great sin in his
hand.
One of these characters said to me, You
don't think that the devil could be chained
with an iron chain, do you?
I said, Why, where did you read about
the iron chain?
I don't believe in something into it myself.
Nowhere does it talk about an iron chain.
And nowhere does it talk about a steel
chain.
It talks about a great sin.
Surely you'll allow God's language when he's trying
to tell you that he'll bind Satan.
Oh, but he's talking about binding the devil
with an iron chain.
It's the very theme of the key.
Why, we believe that the key of death
hangs at the girdle of Christ the Light.
He says, I'm alive forevermore, and the keys
of hell and of death.
And as I see life, you know, I'm
going down this corridor of time.
Can't I say this?
There's the door of God down there.
They don't want me to take you around
and show you the wooden door, do you?
I'm using the figure of speech.
But to me, it's terribly real.
There's the door of death.
But I'm absolutely sure I'm not going through
it until he puts the key in and
turns it.
David used another figure.
He talks about the gates of death.
Oh, however, whatever way you like it will
suit me.
Don't be reading something into it that's not
here.
Oh, but he's talking about an iron chain.
My God will be able to bind the
devil, and certainly he can give the angel
authority and power to open the gate.
We're at the third verse.
Dear Lord, part us in my fear, and
with thy blessing, take us to our homes
in safety, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.