P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

LUCIFER’S CONFESSION

If you could simply push a convenient button and have certain national leaders suddenly be . . . gone . . . would you want to do that? You push the button and, no questions asked, no lengthy trials, no extradition, no possibility of avoiding retribution through a technical loophole, no miscarriage of justice because some liberal European judge over at the Hague lets him off the hook – you can completely remove that certain someone from the scene. Would that be a good thing?

Quick! you say. Where’s the button? I’ll push it 50 times! Maybe so, and in recent blood-bathed weeks as we’ve watched on TV, I might join you. But on the other hand, humanity also longs for an accounting. A day of reckoning. We’d like to see that brutal dictator, that strongman, have to sit in a military courtroom and answer for the massacres, the weapons of mass destruction, the rapes, the abuse of prisoners, the starving children, the years of totalitarianism. Before pushing the button, we’d like to simply be able to look evil in the eye and have evil admit: “I was wrong.” In a sense, a war can’t really be over until there’s that final denouement, a resolving of all things.

Not to connect this story with what I just said, but maybe you remember, back in late September of 1974, when incoming President Gerald Ford made a courageous but controversial decision to pardon Richard Nixon. It was a blanket pardon, perfectly constitutional, and – in my view – probably necessary for the nation to “get on with life.” But those who wanted a final resolving, a big day in court, a playing of all the Watergate tapes, a look-him-in-the-eye moment, were probably disappointed.
Speaking of wrapping things up, we certainly didn’t do that yesterday, as the clock gained the upper hand on our Bible study in the book of Revelation. We were thinking together about how a promised Second Coming of Jesus seems to provide an end to the war. Instead of God’s people just endlessly being born, dying, and having their soul float to heaven, the return of Jesus brings a kind of finality to this tragic experiment called sin.

Let me humbly make the same disclaimer that I did in our Thursday radio visit, because denominations do have various interpretations of last-day prophetic events. Most of you are aware that the Voice of Prophecy is an Adventist ministry, so we certainly are proponents of the visible Second Coming or “Advent” of Jesus. But as we understand the time line of the millennium, God’s redeemed saints spent that 1000-year period in heaven, while this earth, holding Lucifer and his fallen angels captive, is essentially empty. Your church may teach a “chiliast” view, where Jesus rules instead on earth during the millennium, and I certainly respect that opinion. In any case, Revelation plainly teaches that those who have rejected Jesus Christ as their Savior will be raised to life for a short time at the END of that 1000-year period, and also that Satan will be “loosed” from his prison of isolation.

And there’s a brief, Armageddon-type moment where Lucifer amasses all of the rebels from the four corners of the earth – this is chapter 20, verse 8 – and they march against the New Jerusalem, which, in my Adventist prophecy scenario, has just descended from heaven after the 1000 years of peace in heaven. Satan’s fallen forces surround the city; they appear ready to take it. But then, just one verse later, they meet their end. Fire comes down and consumes them all.

It’s a sad, sad day . . . and it raises a painful question. It appears that those who have rejected Jesus are already dead. Back in chapter 19, we find a metaphorical picture where they are “killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse.” In the book of II Thessalonians we read about rebels who are destroyed simply “by the brightness of His coming.” And now, here in the final moments of Revelation, we seem to find a picture of Jesus raising up these lost and angry castaways, only for the purpose of destroying them AGAIN. And we have to wonder why? If you’ve already won, why go back out onto the battlefield once again?

And you know, I believe we find the answer right in how we began our study today. Doesn’t the universe deserve a denouement, a final wrap-up? Shouldn’t there be a conclusive court scene where a sober, watching universe can hear Lucifer’s admission of guilt?

It doesn’t say so here in Revelation, but friend, I firmly believe that you can take Philippians chapter two . . . and put it right here at the close of time. Right before the last executing of justice. Let me share this long, poignant, powerful passage of Scripture with you, beginning with verse five:

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” Paul writes – and who could argue? He continues: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

And now comes the climactic moment of all ages, all civilizations, all global and galactic beings who have ever lived anywhere in God’s universe. Friend, listen to this:

“Therefore God exalted Him [Jesus] to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

If I read my Bible correctly, there will be one galactic moment, found here in Revelation 20, where every being who has ever lived in the domain of God’s universe will be alive and present at one time. That’s never been true before; it will never be true again. But Cain and Abel, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Nero, and Napoleon, Hitler, Luther, Mother Teresa, Saddam Hussein, and all the other great saints and sinners of all ages, past and present, will be on the scene. Some inside the great City, others on the outside but closing in fast.

And then somehow – the Bible doesn’t give these details – it appears that there will be a great pause. Jesus is exalted to the highest place. In a new and unique way, He will be enthroned on the highest throne, given the highest place. As the Redeemer of the fallen human race, He will claim His trophies.

And notice: now EVERY knee will bow. EVERY tongue will confess. EVERY soul, saved and lost, righteous and wicked, loyal and rebellious, will go to their knees. Some will go to their knees in worship, others in defeated submission. But we’ll all be on our knees. And with one voice, the Mother Teresas and the Husseins, the Billy Grahams and the Mussolinis of this shattered old world will admit that Jesus is Lord. That God’s cause is just. That the war is over. As we mentioned yesterday, the weapons of the enemy will be stacked up in a field because we ain’t gonna study war no more.

And now I want to very carefully and prayerfully say this. I believe that the flames of verses 9 and 10 are then going to really finish the conflict. I believe the flames will be real. I believe they will be unquenchable. And I think they will be “sufficient firepower,” as coalition forces have said in recent weeks, to destroy Satan.

Please understand what I’m saying here – and I humbly respect where you may believe differently. I believe the war is really going to be over, and that the destruction of hell WILL come to an end. I know that verse 9 says evil will be devoured, while verse 10 says that the torment goes “day and night forever and ever.” That sounds like a contradiction. Some passages talk about eternal fire, while others describe the fate of the wicked as death, extinction, “being no more,” being “as the chaff.” But clearly, as we then read the triumph of Revelation 21 and 22, the universe is clean. There are no more tears. The scars of sin, of rebellion, of armed conflict, of warfare and atrocities, are a dim, tenderly bathed memory. And so I believe it is possible that the metaphors about “eternal” and “everlasting” are to convey two things. First of all, that Lucifer and his armies will be hit with all of heaven’s righteous power and indignation. Hell will be a sufficient force to do its sober work. And secondly, that the DEATH of hell certainly will be everlasting and eternal and unceasing through the ages. The punishMENT is forever, but perhaps not the punishING.

Tell me. Don’t you long for this conflict to be totally finished, and for Satan to be gone forever? I know you do, and I do too. Having said that, I bow before the sure Word of Scripture and I say to our loving God: “Father, the tragedies of this world are in Your hands. Do what You will.” Listen, friend, however and for how long God chooses to deal with these enemy armies is His business. However He does it will be fair and right, and all of God’s grateful children who stand inside the wall of His grace and strength will praise Him and look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no more tears, no suffering, no pain, no death.

It may be a hard word to pronounce, but nobody can do a denouement like our God. Nobody can finish it like He can.