Revelation 20: Jesus Crushes Evil

What does it mean when Jesus crushes evil once and for all? Revelation 20 delivers the dramatic conclusion to humanity's struggle with sin and darkness, and it's far more decisive than most imagine.

The chapter opens with a stunning visual: Satan himself – not defeated by some cosmic battle of equals – but casually tossed into a bottomless pit by a single angel. This powerful imagery would have encouraged early Christians facing persecution under Roman emperors who demanded worship. Their message? Even Rome's mighty empire is nothing compared to God's kingdom.

We journey through the controversial "thousand years" (or millennium) when Christ reigns with those who died for their faith, followed by Satan's brief final rebellion and ultimate destruction. But perhaps most compelling is the great white throne judgment, where everyone faces God as "books are opened." As we unpack this scene, we discover that judgment isn't primarily about tallying good and bad deeds, but answering a single question: what did you do with Jesus?

C.S. Lewis famously described hell as "locked from the inside" – not a place where unwilling victims are sent, but where people who choose to reject God receive exactly what they wanted: separation from Him. This understanding transforms how we view both God's justice and human freedom.

Whether you're struggling with questions about eternity, wondering about the fairness of final judgment, or simply trying to understand Revelation's apocalyptic imagery, this episode offers clarity without oversimplification. Join us as we discover how to live today with eternity in view, finding both comfort in our salvation and urgency in sharing it with others.

Contact us-

Ask a Question
Send Encouragement

Take a Next Step-

SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.

Socials-

Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.

The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Bible Breakdown
• 2:16 Revelation 20: Satan's Imprisonment
• 5:46 The First Resurrection and Millennial Reign
• 7:12 Satan's Final Defeat
• 7:46 The Great White Throne Judgment
• 10:48 Living with Eternity in View
• 14:34 Closing Prayer and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. Revelation, chapter 20. And today's title is Jesus Crushes Evil. We already saw Jesus declare victory and literally destroy all of his enemies with just the words from his mouth. The Bible says in the beginning, god spoke and everything came into existence. The Bible says in the beginning, god spoke and everything came into existence. And here, at the end of recorded history, god is going to speak and all things are going to be made new all over again. So we're going to all that in just a moment.

Speaker 1: 0:57

But as we do that, as you get your Bibles out, get ready to get into Revelation, chapter 20. Make sure you take just a moment to like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast, make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast it really does help and make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. The more we dig, the more we find. And I'm going to tell you if there's ever been a book of the Bible that we could just keep digging, keep digging, keep digging, it is this one. And so make sure you go there and you engage with all of us, and as we have been doing and we've only got three more chapters. I want to make sure that we continue to leave this disclaimer and that is this that the book of Revelation is endlessly fascinating because there's so many different ways you can look at the book of Revelation and there's so many lessons to be learned from the book of Revelation and there are a lot of places that want to look at the future and as we get toward the end of the book, it's impossible for us to not look into some of that theology. However, the primary goal of this podcast is to not look into the vast future, but to look at what the early church would have seen as the focus of this book, because they would have been reading this right in the moment of dealing with persecution.

Speaker 1: 2:09

And the overall goal, john said at the very beginning, was the revelation of Jesus Christ, and that is that Jesus wins. Jesus wins over all of this and we can see that. And it's so important to the early church because, as we've been saying every time John told us that he was writing to the early church, because, as we've been saying every time John told us that he was writing to the seven churches, that he would have most likely been the overseer, or other translations would say the presbyter over. And what he knows is is these seven churches are receiving big time persecution from all over the place, and one of the things they receive a persecution about is emperor worship. Emperor worship would have really hit its stride again under Augustus and the different ones, but especially when Nero came to power they really started worshiping the emperor again. And now that it is most likely in the early 90s AD and Emperor Domitian is in charge, rome is experiencing a lot of success and the emperor worship is getting pretty big. And so God is reminding this persecuted early church that Rome may be powerful, but it is nothing compared to the kingdom of God.

Speaker 1: 3:20

And we saw in chapter 19, or, excuse me, 18, about the destruction of Babylon, slash Rome, and now in 19, rather, it was how Jesus returns in the second coming of Christ and everything is destroyed that rose against him. And now we continue this with chapter 20. This is the victory march of our King. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Revelation 20, verse one, says this then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand, and he seized the dragon, that serpent who is the devil, satan, and bound him in chains for a thousand years. Now pause. The old serpent is referring back to Genesis, chapter 3. And I can't wait until we get to the book of Genesis. We're going to talk about what the serpent actually may have looked like. So here we go, verse 3, the angel threw him, the devil, into a bottomless pit, and then he shut and locked it so that Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a short while. Now pause, think about that for a moment.

Speaker 1: 4:31

The devil, who many people think is somehow equal with God, coming out against God, as though there's this epic struggle of good versus evil. And we're not so sure. But at the last minute, in chapter 19, god wins. No, no, that. An angel it doesn't even say a powerful angel, it just says an angel threw him into the bottomless pit. So he didn't even take an archangel, it didn't take a warring angel, just some old angel who just barely got his wings, went over and threw the devil into a bottomless pit, verse four.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Then I saw thrones and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge, and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads and the hands. They all came to life again and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. That's where they get the phrase, by the way, the millennial thousand, the millennial reign. Verse 5,. This is the first resurrection. Then the rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them, the second death holds no power, but they will be the priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Verse 7,. Then the thousand years came to an end and Satan will be let out of his prison. He will go out and deceive the nations called Gog and Magog, every corner of the earth. He will gather them together for battle, a mighty army as numberless as the sands along the seashore, and I saw them. And they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God's people, the beloved city that would have been Jerusalem. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them. Then the devil who had deceived them was thrown into a fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet, and they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever Verse 11,.

Speaker 1: 6:41

And then I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and the sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne and the books were opened, including the book of life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done as. And the books were open, including the book of life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up its dead and the death and the grave gave up their dead, and all were judged according to their deeds. The death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire, and the lake of fire is the second death, and anyone whose name was not found recorded in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Wow, so what we see here is we see God bringing everything to a completion. He's tying it up in a bow and he's finishing it.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Now there's plenty of speculation as to what this means when you look at it in the future, because there is this moment when, for a while, the enemy is put into a place of containment, a bottomless pit, a prison cell, basically, and for a thousand years, the people who had been martyred for Christ reigned with him over all things. And then, after the thousand years, the enemy was released. For a short time, he deceived some people. They formed two towns called Gog and Magog. Two cities came against God and got all over again, said enough, and then he put the devil in this lake of fire. It's a place of eternal separation from God. And then everything was judged, small and great. Everything was brought to justice, and so there's plenty of people that want to speculate with that. I'm not going to do that here.

Speaker 1: 8:24

However, what it would have meant for the early church is it would have reminded them that, even though we will go through seasons when we will experience the goodness of God, we will see God do great things, we'll go through seasons of peace. The enemy is going to continue to come back and try to deceive people, so don't be surprised. However, in the end, god will finally get rid of the enemy forever. So they would have been warned. Yes, god is going to overcome. There's going to be seasons of great joy and excitement. However, realize that the enemy is going to continue to try to frustrate the goodness of God, but there will be an end to the enemy and then you see how he said that there will be a time when the books, in other words, the recordings of people, in other words nothing is hidden from the sight of God, and then the books will be open and the book of life, and people will be judged according to what they did.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Now, this could scare people if they think that we get to heaven based on what we do. We don't get to heaven based on what we do. We get to heaven based on who we serve, and so I don't know exactly how this is going to happen, and one of the things that I love about God's word is God's word leaves this open, and frustratingly so because the other part, while I love it, I also really don't like it, because I love details and I would love for God to say this is exactly how it's going to happen. So we don't know exactly how this is going to happen. However, it says that we will be judged according to what we have done, and the number one thing we have to do is we have to decide what to do with Jesus. And so can I tell you I don't know exactly how it's going to happen. You and I are reading God's word together, and if you've been with me since the beginning, or if you've caught up, then you know by now.

Speaker 1: 10:10

The Bible does not say exactly how this is going to happen, but there will be a time when we will have to decide and have to answer the question what did you do with Jesus? What did you do with the sin in your life? In the book of Romans, it says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It says the wages of that sin is death. Someone's got to pay for that sin, but the gift of God is eternal life. Therefore, whoever confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believes in their heart, in other words, truly believes that he is Lord, they will be forgiven. And so we will have to decide what to do. And so what this is is this is the moment when everyone will be judged justly according to what they did with Jesus. Everyone will be judged justly according to what they did with Jesus, and for those who are judged justly and they have confessed Jesus as Lord and they have been the need of him and they serve him, then they get to be with him in chapter 21, which we get to tomorrow, which will be amazing. And those who don't, then they go without him. And here's the thing.

Speaker 1: 11:15

I love how CS Lewis said this, because what we think of, if we think of this, we think well, how unfair, you know. We think this is so sad that there we almost got this picture in our head of like everybody is standing in line. Tell me in the comments below on YouTube if this is exactly the picture you have in your head. There's this beautiful white throne and people are standing in line and we're going one after another and God is saying you go to heaven, you go to hell, you go to heaven, you go to hell. And that people are like crying in agony because they don't want to go to hell, but now they're forced to against their will, all this stuff. I love how CS Lewis says this.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So CS Lewis says that hell is a place that is locked from the inside. What does that mean? That means that hell is a place for people who want to go there, because, in the end, either we say God, your will be done, or God says your will be done, because everyone has a choice. We have a choice on whether or not to choose to follow Jesus. And so for those who choose to deny Jesus, who say I do not want to serve Jesus, what he's going to say is okay, don't serve me, but there's a price to pay, and that is you have to be separated from me. And so those who go to hell are going to be the ones who chose, who said I don't want to serve Jesus. And so he says okay, it breaks my heart, but you don't have to serve me. But that means now you have to be separated from me. And that's what hell is, is a place of separation, even though think about this for a moment the Bible says that God is omnipresent. That means there is not a place where he is not. Therefore, that means God is even there. So they are separated from his presence, but he still knows they're there, and so he, if you think about it, will mourn the loss of those people for all of eternity, because those are still his created beings, but they have chosen to stay far away from God forever.

Speaker 1: 13:07

What's the big idea? What's the application for us today? The application for us today is to live today with eternity in view. For us, that means that we live with expectation, knowing that, because we have chosen to follow Jesus one day, we don't have to worry about this test. We've already got the cheat sheet, and so, if it is the case where we stand before God in the line and I really don't think that's how it's going to happen but if we do, we don't have to worry, because when we get to the front of the line, we see Jesus on his throne. He's going to smile at us and give us a big hug. Hey man, I'm so glad to see you. Come on, let's do this, let's enjoy it. But then, for those who don't, they don't have that to look forward to. And can I tell you there's one thing better than heaven and one thing worse than hell, and that's taking somebody with you.

Speaker 1: 13:56

And so living with eternity in view is to make sure, to the best of our ability, that everybody around us is able to have the cheat sheet with them as well, and that is that Jesus is their Lord.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Let's pray together right now, god. Thank you so much for today. Thank you that we can live with eternity in view, and on one end, that means we live with a constant sense of joy. We live knowing that you, jesus, are on that throne and that, when the time is right, god, you are going to make all things new, you are going to judge this world, and you are going to make right the things that are wrong. At the same time, though, god, let that fill us with a sense of purpose, to make sure that everybody else that we know can say that they know you as well. We celebrate that right now. In Jesus name, we pray Amen, amen. What God's word says in Revelation 1, verse 7,. It says look, he comes with the clouds of heaven and everyone will see him. I hope, as we are reading through this, you are looking forward to that day more than ever will see him. I hope, as we are reading through this, you are looking forward to that day more than ever. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Revelation, chapter 21.