Satan is the Great Deceiver

RV240-01

Satan's Release

The Millennium

Perfect Justice

The Curse of Sin is Relieved

So, the apostle Paul said that the time is coming, indeed, when the curse upon creation will be lifted. Suddenly, we are not going to be struggling against insects; against lack of rain; and, against disasters in nature of one kind or another. There will be no weeds to fight; the ground will be fertile; and, there will be an abundance of food. The earth will become so fertile such that be nowhere will there be anything such as is taking place in places like Rwanda today, where people are under the agonies of starvation? Starvation will be an unknown factor.

Many centuries before, the prophet Isaiah, under God's insight, was told about this period. We have that in Isaiah 35:1-10, where the period of the millennium is described in this way: "The wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the desert will rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It will blossom profusely, and rejoice with rejoicing, and shout of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it – the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God; encourage the exhausted; and, strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, "Take courage. Fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come. But He will save you.

Wellness

Here's a dramatic, wonderful picture. Not only will nature, in terms of vegetation, be changed, but nature in terms of mens' physical structures will be changed, and even animals will be changed so that they're no longer ferocious. And physical ailments will be unknown. People will enjoy maximum good health. Isaiah 65:20 says that if anybody should die at the age of 100, it will be like a child dying in our era. People will again be living for hundreds and hundreds of years.

There will be great emotional stability, as Isaiah has pointed out, and above all, there'll be an enormous joy. The earth will be flooded with great personal happiness.

Of course there'll be a great population explosion, and it will create strong family units. Those who argue that we have to reduce population by about 2 billion people for the earth to survive are hereby demonstrated to be idiots once more. The earth can sustain multiplied numbers of people today over what we have. We have ... six billion people in the world today, and the earth can easily sustain it. When the curse is removed, it's going to be a wonderful time, and people will be blessed beyond their fondest dreams.

No Ferocity of Nature

As doctrine spreads across the face of the earth, people become cognizant of what God is like, and what His power is capable of doing, they will also discover that it affects creation. And there a little boy is going to come home and say, "Mommy, look. I found this kitty," and it's a lion. It's a cute little lion cub, and you won't go bananas. You'll say, "OK, we'll keep him." And in time he will be a giant animal that will be walking around your house, and you'll have a giant cot just for him. And all that that big lion will do will be purr and lick your hands, and just be so cuddly and warm in the winter time. You can't imagine a world like that.

Your son comes home, and he's curled with a cobra. He says, "Look at this, mommy" – a giant worm. And you won't recoil with horror. You'll say, "OK, put them out there in the yard, and let him find a place to sleep," because the cobra will no longer be so vicious.

So, you're in a world where nature has had the curse removed. And then the time comes when you know that Jesus Christ is responsible for this. You have to vote for or against Him, and you cast your ballot against Christ?

Peace

In Micah 4, the prophet Micah looks forward to this happy millennial condition also when he says, "And He will judge between many peoples, and render decisions for mighty distant nations." In a world government, Christ will settle disputes: "Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they train for war."

So, here is one of the major prophets, Isaiah, predicting this great time of world peace. Here is a minor prophet, Micah, doing the same thing. Millennial society is going to be free of strife, in part, because doctrine will be so prevalent that it will guide people's personal conduct.

Another thing that will be true of the era of the millennium (which will be the background upon which people vote for or against Jesus Christ at the end of the millennium) is the personal prosperity of those who work. Prosperity is going to be commonplace. In Psalm 72:16, the psalmist says, "May there be abundance of grain in the earth. On top of the mountains, its fruit will wave like the cedars of Lebanon, and may those from the city flourish like the vegetation of the earth." This is an indication and a description once more of the condition of the millennium.

In Micah 4:4, this is also alluded to: "And each of them (here in the millennium, each citizen) will sit under his vine and under his fig tree with no one to make them afraid for. For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken." Look closely what it said. Each citizen will sit under his own vine and under his fig tree. That's private property ownership. No one makes him afraid. No one makes him afraid that he's going to be taxed out of his possessions. The mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it;" that is, Jesus Christ has declared it.

There will be the highest standard of living on earth in history. No government will violate or confiscate through taxation to distribute to favorite groups. What a changed world that's going to be. In Isaiah 65:21-22, Isaiah points this out: "And they shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall also plant vineyards and eat their fruits. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For as the lifetime of a tree, so shall be the days of My people. And my chosen one shall wear out the work of their hands."

Now, what a great promise that is! You will build a house, and you will enjoy it. It won't be taken away from you. You will plant vineyards, and you will eat the fruit of your own labors. You won't build a house and have somebody else take it over by some government edict. You won't plant and another will eat the fruits of your labors. You will wear out yourself what you have built. And the money you've earned, you'll spend it yourself.

That is a dramatically different world. That, of course, is the world the way it should be today. This is the kind of a world that God envisions today with people with private property ownership and freedom of choice. Yet, what kind of a world we live in? We live in a world today where our government has criminalized freedom of association. You cannot say, "I do not want to associate with certain people. I do not want to employ certain types of people. I don't want to do business with certain people. I don't want to rent my house to certain types of individuals." The government says, "No, we have criminalized freedom of association." Because the American people no longer have an educational system that teaches them the course that in my day was called "Civics," where you learned how the government works, and you had drilled into your head that you will possess your own person, and nobody has any right over your own person. You are restricted only by the laws legitimately passed, and by that which does not injure another. But nobody controls and has a right to tell you what to do with your person or your associations.

Americans now are sheep who blindly and mindlessly follow political leaders, and sit here, and suffer, and just take it. The time has come for Americans on one day all over the country to throw open their windows, and open their front doors, and stand, and yell all at once, "We're not going to take it anymore." But it's not going to change. It's going to change when Christ gets here. Then the doors are going to be opened, and the windows are going to be opened, and everybody's going to yell, "We're not going to take it anymore." Indeed we won't, because our beneficent dictator, Jesus Christ, is going to bring it all to an end.

The result will be great personal prosperity for those who work. And there will be proper care provided through these prosperous people for those who are the genuine needy. Your personal liberty of association was given to you by God, not the Constitution, and not the Declaration of Independence. Your freedom to associate with whomsoever you desire is no longer going to be criminalized as it is today.

Another one of the stupendous things, that is the background of this vote against Christ at the end of the millennium, is that there is no religion on this earth. All religion is created by Satan. Satan and the demons are bound in the abyss, so there is no religion anywhere on earth. At the time, only the Bible will be viewed as an authority on spiritual matters. People will not try to find spiritual truth but how they feel about things, or what their experiences are. They'll be no more systems which exalt man as a potential god. There'll be no more priestly hierarchies which are creating doctrines from traditions which are condemned in Mark 7:7-9, making the doctrines of men equal with the Word of God.

Also, wonder of wonders, it will be a time of great spirituality on this earth. In Joel 2:28-29, there is the most amazing prediction of what life will be like in the millennium spiritually – what the spiritual condition of people will be. Notice how dramatically different this will be: "And it will come about after this (during the millennium), that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind. Your sons and daughters will prophesied; your old men will dream dreams; and, your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants, I'll pour out My Spirit in those days."

What an amazing society! Verse 28 says, "All will be empowered by the Holy Spirit." This is all – not just a few, but everyone. Everyone will be filled with the Spirit. Every believer will be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Every person will be Spirit-filled. The very presence of Jesus Christ on this earth, in full view of believers, will produce an ecstatic expression of spirituality. There won't be any Satan to take emotions at that time, and to distort them into religious experience. Emotions get out of hand today unless the mentality of the soul, guided by doctrine, controls the emotions.

The whole charismatic movement is a distortion of Satan because the mentality of the soul of those people is not controlled by doctrinal truth. Therefore, Satan comes in, and he has a field day with their emotions and distorting the Word of God.

This passage, Joel 2:28-29, takes place following the Second Coming of Christ, and at the restoration of Israel as the nation of God. What an opportunity to walk with God in that day! Everybody: publicly; honorably; and, without shame, will be acting as people who are filled with the Spirit of God – those who are saved.

There is one more thing. It will be a time of great free grace salvation through faith in Christ, and it will be something that everyone will know about. It will not be a secret. You are not going to find people who don't know the gospel. 1 Peter 2:24 says, "And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to the sin nature and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed." So, what Christ has provided on the cross will be widespread in its understanding. People will know this, and it will be widely accepted.

So, all in all, when it comes time to vote for or against Jesus Christ as King at the end of the millennium, the millennium background will be a golden age for humanity.

The rulers of our world today think that they are leading mankind to a golden age of peace and prosperity and equality. They took a wonderful nation like Rhodesia, and changed its name to Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was a nation that was built upon the background of Reformation Christianity, and it was a nation that was prosperous, and free, and fertile, and well-cared for, and a civilized government. It was a gem in the midst of dark Africa. Because of the pressures of the American government, Zimbabwe was turned over to the socialists, and the communists came in and took that nation, and transformed it into a jungle and a basket-case economically.

That is the nature of the rulers of our world today who think that they are bringing peace, prosperity, and equality because they do not understand the basic principle of freedom. Nobody owns your person. You have total control governed by the laws of God and the constituted laws of man to act as you choose in every respect. When the government becomes tyrannical, it begins to move in upon your personal liberties. The result is loss of prosperity for everyone. Equality is never achieved. Peace is lost.

Today we're seeing the same thing in South Africa. South Africa now is on a high roll, and it believes that now great and wonderful things will be done for the multiplied tribes in South Africa who hate each other's innards like all the African tribes do throughout Africa. You may now expect to see another country, one of the greatest in Africa, go down. The Union of South Africa, again, produced by Reformation Christianity now will go down the tubes, as it has become a socialist country, and is going to try to make communism work all over again.

It is interesting to listen to Vaclav Havel, who is a Czech, and who is president of the Czech Republic, and who had come up under communism. He's a poet and a man of literature. And recently in being honored, he stressed again that the Czech Republic has taken off like a rocket in prosperity. They have gone with free enterprise capitalism like you wouldn't believe. And communism has been left behind.

I was in Czechoslovakia when the two parts were still united, shortly after the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall. Within a couple or three months after that happened, we were there that summer. You could not believe how quickly free enterprise had taken hold. Everywhere you looked, somebody was out in the street with a little table selling something, and everybody was putting up klobasi stands. Klobasi is that delicious sausage, and you could walk up, and for a few koruna, you could buy a tremendous sandwich, and people were lined up. I was having to elbow Czechs out of the way, and because I knew a few words in the language, they became afraid of me. An American who can speak the language is kind of awesome. So, they would step back, and I'd muscle my way up. This is free enterprise. This is freedom. This is liberty. And they took to it.

But what Vaclav Havel said the other day was: "While our prosperity is now multiplying, we must remember that our freedom is attached to something that is higher than ourselves." Oh, is there nothing sacred in communism anymore? Now they're talking about God. Here is this former victim of the communists who is standing up and saying, "Yes, we're becoming a really prosperous country. We're following in the footsteps of the United States. But don't forget for a moment that we are a country like all other countries under God. And if we do not make our laws conform to the laws of God, we will suffer the consequences that all other countries have. We will become another Rhodesia basket case; another Rwanda; and, another everything else just as these nations that operate on Satan's religion. Satan is a blood-letter, and he is letting the blood as fast as he can get it to flow, because that is Satan's way.

So, here's the millennium (earth's golden age). We have rulers today who think they're leading us into a millennium, but they don't know the first step toward that direction, because the guiding principle that they have is humanism, in which man is a god who is capable of creating his own paradise. But there are some Christians among us too who view this upward progression of mankind to a glorious golden age. The post-millennialists have come into great power among us now, and they are using Christianity as the concrete instrument they claim which will bring the world to God. That is not true. The Bible reveals that man is going to take himself into a catastrophic self-destruction, and he will only be preserved by the Second Coming of Christ. The world is not going to get better, and it's a fool's hope to think so.

The parable of the wheat and tears makes it very clear that right to the end, when Christ returns, society is going to be mixed with this evil as well as good. But during the millennium, the mental; the moral; the social; the political; and, the economic conditions will be most like heaven itself that it has ever been on the face of the earth. All attempts to create a golden age for mankind by government power and programs has been a failure. It is not possible for government to create a golden age. This is as our founders wisely understood, because they understood biblical principles. Government can only act as an umpire. Government cannot create wealth. Government cannot create good. It can simply keep law and order. And when government gets in there and says, "I want to take your money, because these poor folks over here need it, and I want to buy this for these folks who don't have it so that they can have what the rest of us have," it all comes crashing down. All government programs are a failure. When you get government health care, and you really get sick, then you will know what failure is.

I heard Vice President Al Gore on TV this morning using the new code word about the health program that the government is promoting. He has picked up Hillary Clinton's comment the other day on her interview where she called it "private health insurance." Now, when a charismatic gets on the TV, and tells you that you can be prosperous if you do this (if you'll send your money to him), and he makes the most outrageous claims, and tells you that if you will send him this money, he will send you an imprint of his hands, such that you may put your hands upon it, and get anything that your heart desires, he tells you that because he knows the charismatics are dumb enough to believe that, and they'll send their money.

So, when Hillary Clinton tells us that this huge government program is going to be private health insurance, what a contempt that shows for the American people! How stupid do they think we are? And Vice President Al Gore did the same thing this morning. He called it "private health insurance," when it's government from one end to the other. But they're trying to cover up the fact that a disaster is in the wings because government only creates disasters. It is free enterprise citizens who have a stake in something that make things successful and good and right.

Well, all this shows the wisdom of our lord in taking the government out of the hands of unbelievers in the millennium. No unbeliever should be in a position of power. He doesn't have the foggiest notion of how to control the levers of power that affect the lives of other people. And until Christ comes, unbelievers are going to be making decisions for the rest of us, even though we Christians can see through it and we know better.

What many refer to as "the Lord's Prayer" is actually "the Apostles' Prayer." It was a prayer for them within the context of the Old Testament order. It is not a prayer for us to recite today. It is a prayer for the kingdom age. In that apostles' prayer, that petition will finally be realized: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). That is going to come about in that Millennial Kingdom, and it will be the greatest age that mankind has ever known.

The Great Election

The Release of Satan

He is released for a very specific purpose – to test the loyalties of those who were born during the millennium. This is going to test the loyalties of the children to Christ who were born during that millennial period. So, he's released, and verse 8 tells us: "He comes out to deceive the nations. He comes charging out of that prison. He is mad as a wet cat. He is in enraged for the humiliation he has experienced, along with his demons, so that he comes out of that prison finally, and he comes out of the abyss like an enraged lion to carry out a plan of revenge and hatred toward God, which he has plotted during 1,000-year imprisonment.

Satan is an Evolutionist

Mormonism

Hinduism

Liberalism

I remember one of the all-time great liberals, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, standing on television, and being questioned about some of the government programs (which weren't all that bad in his day), but he was sponsoring them, and were already proving to be a disaster. I remember him looking into the camera and saying, "There is nothing wrong with these programs we have passed. They just need a little fixing up."

That's what the devil thinks. If he can just fix it up a little bit and just approach it right, he's going to get a leg up on God, because God is just an evolved creature, and Satan is capable of evolving even beyond where He is now.

The Deceiver

Satan Lies

How would you folks like to have some room to expand? How would you like some breathing room folks? How would you like some freedom from this rigid imposition upon society that we've lived with for 1,000 years of the rules and the laws of the Bible, and of the moral code, and of Jesus Christ? He promises people a return to an era that existed before the millennium, when governments did not worry about making laws which are compatible with the laws of God in Scripture. In fact, governments used to make laws like that that were compatible with Scripture in order to restrain evil. Then the time came, as we live today, where what God says is an abomination, a leader of a nation will stand up and say, "I want to promote homosexuality in the military." God says, "No, that's an abomination. You can't do that." You can't make a human law that's an abomination is condemned by God. They say, "Well, I don't really care. This is what I have to do, and I want to do this."

So, we have this whole, wide, crazy twisting of human law to be in opposition to the laws of God. So, here comes Satan who, "That was a wonderful time. People had great freedom. Would you like to go back to that?

Man is Hostile to God

Demon Possession

So, multitudes who are born during the millennium do not trust in Christ for salvation. So, they're not spiritually regenerated. They exercise, in fact, what the Bible calls "a feigned obedience to Christ." They look like they're loyal to Christ. They pretend that they're true to Him, and wonder of wonders, the Holy Spirit, centuries ago, in several of the Psalms, pointed this out – that this is the way things would be in the millennium.

Here's one: Psalm 18:44: "As soon as they hear Me, they obey. Foreigners submit to Me." And the word "submit" in the Hebrew there means that foreigners have a feigned obedience to me. They pretend: "These aliens pretend to be subject to Me." These aliens outside of Israel pretend to have a great respect for the God of the Jews.

Isaiah 66:3 is another one. It says, "Say to God, "How awesome are Your works. Because of the greatness of Your power, your enemies will give feigned obedience to You." During the millennium, the power of Christ will be so evident that people will say, "We can't we can't fight them. We're going to join them. We're not going to trust in Him as Savior, but we'll pretend that we are loyal to Him." That is feigned obedience.

Here is another one: Psalm 81:15: "Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him, and their time of punishment would be forever." Here, the psalmist says, "Yeah, there are people who are pretending to be loyal to Christ. There is feigned obedience, but their eternal punishment is coming."

The Hippie Generation

I remember one of our young adults in college at the time who was impressed with these people. He would say, "But Dr. Danish, these are such intelligent students." I said to him, "They are ignorant intellectuals. That is what they are, because they know not God. They're out of touch with reality. And what they are proposing is sin. And his sin has upon it the kiss of death." That's what the Bible says. That's the penalty. And what have we found? We have found that everything out of the 1960s generation has resulted in death, and destruction, and disease, and poverty, and shredding of the human spirit.

These unsaved people think they've had to listen to all this doctrine on TV during the millennium. They've had to learn the truth. They want to indulge the sin nature. So, this is an appeal that rings a bell with them from Satan. Human viewpoint causes them to be resentful of the godly restraints in millennial society. Don't forget that those godly restraints are in millennial society to preserve and to protect your right to your own person. If American children could only have it pounded into their heads that no one has the right to their person, they might grow up and have enough courage (that we don't) to resist this criminalization of the liberty of association – that government tells us: "You cannot refuse to associate with certain people in employment; in doing business; and, in one thing or another." Who says that you have a right to my person – to criminalize the freedom of my choice in whom I will associate with?

The unregenerate man in the millennium, is dominated by the sin nature. He functions on human viewpoint arrogance, and he is resentful toward Jesus Christ. Now, Satan taps into this smoldering, evil, human condition to rally one last great attack against God. Satan provides the spark to explode the unregenerate man's natural hatred for God. And Satan immediately promotes the principles that appeal to the sin nature of all these unbelievers in the millennium: the principles of force; of greed; of selfishness; of ambition; of sinful sensuality; and, of power over others.

In Christ's kingdom, Satan and the army that he raises is going to find that thumbing one's nose at God is not tolerated. Evil is exposed. It is stopped, and it's punished. This is now the final climactic last act of the drama of human history – a wonderful era of 1,000 years of the golden age of mankind. Everything that the most liberal politician would envision for human society now comes to pass under the proper control conditions of Christ. Now you would think that when it came time now to vote for or against Jesus, everybody would say, "I'm for Him." But no.

We discover that something amazing happens. Satan is released; his agents make the appeal; and, out of every corner and pocket of the world, coming streaming to his cause, are the unbelievers who say, "We vote against Christ." Satan hasn't learned anything. They haven't learned anything. One thing we have all learned is the total depravity of man. Man on his own cannot take one step toward God.

Now, the consequences of Satan's appeal are quite awesome, and we should look at those next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

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