THE EXECUTION AND BINDING OF THE DRAGON (REV. 20:1-3)

And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season.' This angel which comes down from heaven is one of the saints referred to in the one hundred and forty-ninth Psalm, to whom God has given power to kill, or to make alive, to bring down to the grave, or to bring up again, which power is called the key of the bottomless pit. The grave is the bottomless pit which, when men go down into it, they can never come out again unless some one who has the power to raise the dead, brings them up.

The great chain that the angel hath in his hand, is the chain or power of death. This chain by which the dragon is bound for a thousand years is the same chain by which the antediluvian sons of God (called "the angels which kept not their first estate ") are bound. They are reserved in everlasting chains of death, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day, then to be raised from the dead and judged by the saints, as Paul taught the church at Corinth. This angel who comes down from heaven with a great chain in his hand, does not lay hold of the dragon, that old serpent, the Devil and Satan, with his own hands but, as we have already shown, he employs the Assyrian to slay him; and when death has seized upon him and he has been buried in his grave, he will have been bound with the chains of death for a thousand years as the decree is that he shall not be raised from the dead till the thousand years are expired. He shut him up and set a seal upon him, just as the same old serpent had done before with Jesus, for they sealed the stone that was rolled to the door of his sepulchre, as Pilate said to them, "Make it as sure as ye can."

The Deceiver of Nations (Rev. 20: 3)

Jerusalem's idolatrous kings and their false prophets, priests, and princes will deceive the nations as it is spoken of her by the Prophet Nahum under the similitude of Nineveh, saying, "Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts (Nahum 3:4). And again in the Revelation (18:23) under the similitude. of Babylon it is said of her, "By thy sorceries were all nations deceived.". And again (Rev. 18:3)," All nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Therefore the great red dragon, the chief of the wicked kings and princes in Jerusalem in the latter days, who had his Gentile allies, the seven heads and ten horns, when he is slain is cast into the grave, or in figurative language is bound with a great chain for a thousand years, and cast into the bottomless pit, and shut up, and a seal set upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Bound for a Thousand Years

Now the great red dragon is the chief and head of a body of crooked serpents in Israel in that day which are like himself, who are also slain in the judgment and sleep with him through the thousand years. The Lord speaks of them by the hand of the Prophet Isaiah (24:21-23) as follows, saying, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison (the bottomless pit), and after many days (a thousand years) shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts (and all his saints) shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

Again in this same connection it is testified (26: 13-14) that the remnant of Israel will say in that day, "O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. They are dead, they shall not live (again till the thousand years are finished); they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish." Again the Lord speaks in similitudes by the Prophet Jeremiah (51: 36-39), calling idolatrous Jerusalem by the name of idolatrous Babylon, saying, "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and an hissing without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps. In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord."

Again in verse 57 the Lord says of them, "And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the king whose name is the Lord of hosts." That is, they shall sleep perpetually for a thousand years and not wake till they are fulfilled, as the testimony of Jesus fully shows. They sleep during the time of the reign of Christ and the saints, and have no part in the honor and glory thereof.

These testimonies go to show that there will be a host of those that have fallen in the judgment, consisting of the high ones that were on high, and kings of the earth, princes, wise men, captains, rulers and mighty men, who will rise also at the end of the thousand years and live again for a little season.

99
THE FIRST RESURRECTION (REV. 20:4-6)

"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls (persons) of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Then referring to the resurrection of those who live and

years.

reign with Christ a thousand years, he says, "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."

Now great care must be taken in the interpretation of this Scripture, as there is no reference here made to God's dealings with his people Israel in former ages, but this has especial reference to two classes of people in Israel who are manifest during the time of judgment in the latter days. The first class who rise and reign with Christ for a thousand years are those who, for a period of three years and a half, have stood before the enemy and been beheaded by the sword for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God because they would not, according to the laws of the rebellious house, worship the beast, neither his image, that they had made in his honor, neither would they receive his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; consequently their heads were smitten off by the sword of the enemy and the avenger.

But the decree of God reads in chapter 13 (verse 10), touching those who slay the saints in that day, saying, "He that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword." And therefore the Lord testifies against them by the Prophet Isaiah, saying, "But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number (666). Therefore will I number you to the sword" (Isa. 65: 11-12).

Therefore when they have completed their work and the time has expired for the righteous, then their turn comes to be slain in like manner, to bow down in their turn before the Assyrian and to be beheaded by his executioners, and they will be sent down to the pit where they sent the righteous before them, as it is written of them, saying, "As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee"; and again it is written of them saying, "Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled, and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, then shalt thou be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they (the Assyrian or the beast) shall deal treacherously with thee" (Isa. 33: 1).

The first and second resurrection that are spoken of in this Scripture (for speaking of a first resurrection implies a second) refer especially to these two classes that are manifested during the progress of the judgment,— first, the righteous that are beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God; second, the wicked in Israel who slay them, consisting of the dragon. and his associates and helpers, the host of the high ones that are on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth. When these two classes are slain, the righteous and the wicked, and have gone down to the pit, the righteous are first raised to reign with Christ for a thousand years; but it is said, "The rest of the dead (that is, the Devil and his host) lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Then again, it is written, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power." That is equivalent to saying that those who are raised in the second resurrection at the end of the thousand years, the dragon and his host, are neither blessed nor holy, and that upon them the second death will have power.

THE RESURRECTION OF SATAN (REV. 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 that 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." This will be a very strange and unusual thing that will be witnessed in that late period of the world's affairs, such as will never have transpired before, which will be nothing less than a body of wicked men, who, after sleeping in the prisonhouse of the grave, bound with chains of death for a thousand years, will then be loosed from their fetters and brought forth from their prison-house by resurrection from the dead, to enter again for a short time upon the same deceitful and rebellious career in which they were engaged before the thousand years began, when they were cut short and cast into the bottomless pit. But these transgressors will be raised from the dead in their mortal bodies as they died, to again die the second death, for the second death hath power over all these. To die and sleep a thousand years will in no wise change the character of these wicked rulers and people of Israel.

THE REVOLT OF NATIONS

When the iron rule is slackened at the end of the thousand years, which Christ and his brethren has maintained over the nations, by which they have been kept in subjection for that period, they quickly revolt again and rise up in rebellion against the king of Israel and against the power enthroned there which has held them under such rigid surveillance for so long a time. Therefore they marshal their forces and come up against Jerusalem at evening, and surround the city, as it is written of them in the fifty-ninth Psalm (verse 6), “They return at evening (the evening of the reign of Christ and the saints) they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips, for who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision."

66

And again it is said (verses 13-15), "Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be; and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth. Selah. And at evening let them return, and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied." But the testimony of Jesus says, Fire came down from heaven and devoured them." These facts go to substantiate what we have already written touching the feigned obedience of nations during the reign of Christ. They submit themselves, while the just and righteous iron rule is maintained over them, and rebel as soon as it is relaxed. These things should suggest to the minds of thinking men what the condition of things will be among the nations during the reign of Christ and his saints, of which we will speak again more particularly.

THE DESTINY OF THE DEVIL (REV. 20:10)

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." It is said above, "where the beast and false prophet are." This word " " is supplied, and is in Italics, and conveys the sectarian idea that this lake of fire and brimstone had been burning during the thousand years since the beast and false prophet were cast into it, and that the beast and false prophet were still alive and burning when the Devil was cast therein. But this is a great sectarian error. The wicked are not immortal as the sects teach, but on the contrary they are but mortal beings and therefore it does not require a thousand years to burn them up so that they cease to be, as it is spoken in the Revelation of the wicked that come up around Jerusalem after the thousand years are finished, saying, "And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them "; or as it is said in the fifty-ninth Psalm (verse 13), "Consume them in wrath; consume them that they may not be."

The fires of God's wrath will burn day and night upon the wicked in the form of the judgments that he will inflict upon them until they are utterly destroyed, when the wrath of God will be satisfied and the fires will die out, and be no more, even as the Lord himself says by the hand of his Prophet Ezekiel (5:12-13) after speaking of the manner of the judgments by which they will be consumed, saying, "Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest, and I will be comforted." Again the Lord says, "So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee; and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry" (16:42).

The same thing is also affirmed in the Revelation touching the seven last plagues, as John testifies of them, saying, "For in them is filled up the wrath of God." These plagues as they are poured out upon the rebellious house, while they last, constitute the lake of fire burning with brimstone in which the wicked of God's evil and idolatrous family will writhe in pain as the various judgments contained therein are being poured out upon the worshippers of the beast and his image, even as it is spoken of by the third angel, saying, "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name" (Rev. 14:9-11).

Now these are punishments inflicted upon the idolaters of the house of Israel in the present life for paying divine honors to the head of this great confederation of nations, called the beast, and also for worshipping the image that has been made and dedicated to him. And the plagues which are inflicted upon them and which constitute the lake of fire burning with brimstone,