David Jeremiah - No Devil
Sitting on 37 acres of land southwest of Colorado Springs is a place called ADX Florence. It's the most secure prison in America. If you could walk its corridors, you'd pass a who's who of criminals, including Zacarias Moussaoui, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks; Terry Nichols, who helped plan the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; James Marcello, the notorious Chicago crime boss; El Chapo, the Mexican drug kingpin; and until recently, Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who was found dead in his cell in 2023. Super spy Robert Hanssen also died in his cell.
In fact, if you go to that prison, you don't usually come out of there. You usually die there. Their prison sentences are very long. Each prisoner is kept in solitary confinement with little or no time outside their cells. The units, as you can see on the screen, are 7 by 12 with a stool and a desk made of poured concrete, a concrete bed with a foam pad, and a toilet with a sink at its top. The cells are soundproof. Multiple cameras monitor each prisoner 24 hours a day. There's a narrow slit of window that lets in the light, and the slits are designed so the prisoners do not know where they are in the complex.
And here's the interesting thing. There has never been an escape from ADX Florence. I only know of one other penitentiary more secure than America's supermax. Designed by Almighty God for the worst of the evil agents in the universe, that prison is known as the bottomless pit, or the abyss. According to Revelation 20, an angel will come from heaven, and John describes him, "...having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished..."
One of the most significant facts about this coming age of peace, this coming Millennium, this coming Golden Age, is the total absence of Satan throughout the entire time. The world will be free of Satan for 365, 250 days, a thousand devil-less years. Can we get a witness for that? When Satan is sealed in the abyss, his influence on earth will not be lessened. It will be nonexistent. Imagine a world in which Satan can no longer manipulate leaders and tempt sinners and take advantage of the weak and corrupt the strong. I want you to know three things about these opening verses in Revelation 20. Let's note, first of all, the person of the devil. You will not find a phrase in the Bible with more accurate description of the devil than this phrase, "...the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan..."
Revelation 20, verse 2. Here are four names, not of four different people, but four names of the same person. It is a list of names that carries a sense of authority, like you were going to announce them before they were thrown into jail. What's behind these four names? Very interesting. First of all, Satan is called the dragon. John referred to the devil as a dragon. This occurs earlier in Revelation 12. If you read Revelation 12, John sees "a great, fiery red dragon" who sought to kill the Messiah at the time of our Lord's first coming, and he will dominate the events around his Second Coming as well.
Here in Revelation 20, John identifies the ultimate version of the dragon. He says the dragon is Satan. The devil is the dragon. And then the Bible calls him the serpent of old, the serpent of old. This takes us all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 when the serpent appeared in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve and Adam into doubting and disobeying God. Satan deceives, you see, by misquoting the Bible. He used that on Eve in the Garden, and he tried to use it on our Lord in the desert, recorded in Matthew chapter 4. Satan uses this subtle method of scripture taken out of context to deceive many. Satan usually does not deny the scripture. He deceives with the use of the scripture, adding and subtracting his own words. He takes the scripture out of context. He uses it the way it was never intended to be used.
Unfortunately, Satan knows the scripture better than most of us, and he's not afraid to use it. He used it on Adam and Eve, he used it on the Lord Jesus in the desert. He hasn't changed one of his strategies, but he keeps using them over and over and over. John gives us the third title for this evil person, the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil. Our English word for "devil" comes from the Latin word "diabolos," and the root meaning is "one who accuses or slanders". The Bible tells us that the devil is our accuser. He comes before the Father and he says something like this, "Did you see David Jeremiah down on earth this week, how he lost his cool, how he got upset, how he did this or that"?
He slandered us. He tries to make us something before God that God does not accept. And then, of course, we have our own advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is there making intercession for us. So we don't have to worry about that, but I want you to know that's Satan's purpose. He's a slanderer. Slander is gossip involving the spreading of harmful information about someone in order to damage their character. Have we ever lived in such a slanderous context as we do now? Every time you turn around, it's happening.
Every night on television, you can find a slander story if you just want to. This is exactly what the devil does, and behind all slander is the devil's influence. In Genesis 3, he slandered God in front of Adam and Eve, and he said, "God knows you won't really die. God knows that in the day you eat it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". With cunning, the devil spun a tale about God with the intention of tarnishing God's reputation and portraying the Lord as someone who is stingy, instead of someone who is generous.
In all the centuries from that day until now, Satan has delighted in accusing God's children before the throne, pointing out our faults, making accusations against us. He did it with Job, he did it with Joshua, he did it with the entire family of believers in Revelation 12. He is always at us, but he is running a feudal scam because we're covered with the blood of Jesus. We're under the blood, we're under the protection of Christ, and he keeps trying even though he can't succeed. He's the dragon, he's the serpent of old, he's the devil, and the final word for him is his more famous title: he is Satan. "And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan..."
Now, that term comes straight from the Greek word "satanas," which means "adversary". Look up, everybody. Satan's not your friend. He's not trying to help you get better. He's trying to destroy you. He wants you to die. His ultimate goal for you is your death. He is your adversary, and that's what the word "Satan" means. It means "adversary," and it occurs more than 30 times in the New Testament. Satan tempts us, he takes advantage of us, he hinders us, he provokes us to lie, he deceives us, he tries to steal the Word of God from our hearts. All of these are right from the scripture. We can safely say that Satan's goals are to reclaim and neutralize God's people.
If you are a Christian, Satan will do everything he can to cause you to stumble, to keep you from living the Christian life. He's out to destroy the church. That's why there's so many churches with division and strife. He wants to manipulate your marriage because he knows that the home is the building block of culture, and that if he can destroy your marriage, he's neutralized your children. He is here to try to displace God. If he gets his way, he will do what the Antichrist does at the very end of time, where he sets himself up as God in the temple and demands that people worship him. Where did Satan begin? He began with that very ploy. He wanted to be worshiped. He wanted to be God. He wanted God's worship to be directed to him.
Today, Satan continues his strategy of division. He injects the poison of suspicion and intolerance and hatred and jealousy. So the first part of this text is, who is the devil? And we now know who he is. But the second part is the prison into which he is cast. The Bible says, "I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up..." The term bottomless pit... you can clap for that. That's a good thing. The "bottomless pit" is a phrase that means "a very deep place," and this is God's supermax.
And I want you to know, no one will ever escape from this prison either. It isn't hell. Hell is the devil's final destination. But for 1,000 years, he will be banished from earth and imprisoned in this mysterious penitentiary. The book of Jude says, "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling, these angels he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day". When the angels followed Satan in his rebellion, many of them were cast into the abyss. Some of them are free and help Satan carry on his activities. For reasons only God knows, he's allowed the devil and some of his evil spirits to travel around earth's atmosphere, but he's imprisoned many of them, and they are imprisoned as I speak.
Do you remember when Jesus cast the demons out of the man in Luke 8? And those demons came out and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss. It was a place they dreaded. And during the trumpet judgments of Revelation 9, there's an angel who will open the shaft leading to the abyss and release these malignant and heinous demons, and during the Tribulation they will be set free. One of the reasons the Tribulation will be such an awful place is that demonic activity will be at its all-time high. The demons of hell will be released to bring along with them the judgment and hate and death that's a part of that seven-year period.
So John tells us in Revelation 20 that the devil will be bound with chains and that he cannot escape and that he will consign to a prison he cannot avoid and he will be there for every single day of the Millennium. That's why it's called the Golden Age. No devil, hallelujah. And now, let's notice not just the person of the devil and the prison of the demons, let's notice the period of deliverance. During this time, John said Satan will "deceive the nations no more till the thousand years are finished".
Did you know that during the Millennial reign of Christ, during the Golden Age, we who live and govern with Christ on earth will be delivered from Satan's tyranny? What change shall take place when the tempter is no longer able to seduce the nations? That will be better than it was in Eden, for in Eden Satan was allowed to tempt our first parents. Nothing like that could ever happen in the Millennium. Doesn't mean there won't be sin on earth. Listen carefully, those with mortal bodies will still battle their fallen nature, and the blessed eternal state of the new heavens and new earth are yet to come. But think of this.
Today, you and I have three enemies as Christians. Those enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil. Consider how different it will be when one of those three is gone and we will not be bedeviled by our enemy. Paul said the devil is "the god of this age," and during the coming Golden Age he will lose his power. Gone will be his ability to amplify sexual temptation and marital infidelity. While we may be tempted, we will not have to confront the enticements of Satan. We'll not have to contend with being sifted as wheat by his evil designs, nor will he fill our hearts to lie to one another as he did Ananias in Acts chapter 5.
We'll be able to forgive one another because we'll be free from Satan's devices. He will not swoop down on us in unexpecting moments, snatch the Word out of our hearts while we're walking out of church on Sunday. He won't hinder the workers of God as he did in 1 Thessalonians 2. Gone will be his ability to plague us with demonically-caused natural disasters. We'll be freed from his ability to hinder the work of the Lord on this planet. No longer will he create agitation among the nations. The Bible says that in the age that is to come we will study war no more, war will be ended. Satan won't be causing wars, and the Bible says he will no longer trouble the nations. He will be unable to do that. He will be consigned to the bottomless pit.
The Bible tells us that Satan "was a murderer from the beginning". When he's gone, we should expect that murder will be virtually nonexistent during the Golden Age. He has "sinned from the beginning," so we would expect the Golden Age to be a little more righteous and exhibit character that we haven't seen in a long time. Satan is "puffed up with pride". Suppose that when he's gone, we might be a little more humble. Today, the devil makes many people take leave of their senses and do his will. The coming Golden Age will be a time of wisdom and sensibility. The devil delights in throwing God's children into prison and persecuting them in all manner of ways.
I want to tell you something I learned again this week. If you don't want to have any trouble, don't preach on the devil. It's amazing that he still has the kind of power that he has, what he can do to us, even when we're getting ready to warn people about who he is. Someone once asked me, "Why do people not think they can understand the book of Revelation, and why don't they read it"? Satan keeps them from doing it because... well, let me ask you this question. If somebody wrote a book about your terrible ending in life, would you want somebody to read your book? He doesn't want anybody to read that book. It tells the story of his future.
This is all a very interesting study to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, have you noticed Satanism is on the rise? "Newsweek" magazine published a major article entitled, "Satan is Getting Hot as Hell in American Pop Culture". The writer covers cultural trends for "Newsweek" and wrote, "The Devil is front and center in movies, in TV shows, in podcasts and even children's books". You see, what's happening is attendance in our churches is waning, spirituality is not moving forward. We had a little blip upward during COVID, and as soon as COVID's dangers passed, we went back not to the same level of attendance before COVID happened, but to lower levels.
We lost a lot of churchgoers in COVID who found out you can go to church on the Internet and they'll never come back to church. What's happened is, in this void that's been created by the lack of Christianity moving in the right direction, that void is being filled with some of these satanic things. So if you watch carefully, you will notice it. If you look around when you're traveling, there are Satanist churches and they advertise in front of their church that they are a Satanist church. As frightening as that is, remember, we may be only seven years from the moment when God will throw Satan into the abyss and slam the door on him. And the knowledge of that future should comfort us today, amen?
So, you know, we shouldn't become overly conscious of the devil, but we shouldn't let him ever get out of our sight. We don't think Satan's defeat is just a future event, he's already defeated, just waiting for the sentence to be carried out. In the meantime, he's very active. Why is he active? Because he knows his time is short. His judgment is coming. Satan has been defeated, but he's not yet banished and consigned to the abyss. So, "Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. For he prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking for someone to devour".
Satan wants to devour you. He wants to devour me. He, most of all, wants to devour your influence, take you out of the game, so that you can't be an active participant anymore, and he is doing it over and over and over again, almost on a weekly basis. Then, don't just do that. Stay confident in the Lord. Remember, the Bible says "...greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world".
In other words, the one who lives within you is greater than Satan. In fact, let me tell you something, friends. Satan isn't even in God's universe. He doesn't belong in the same sentence with God. He is no match for God. God is overwhelmingly greater than Satan. Satan may be powerful, but his power is nothing. And when God deems it necessary for him to be gone, he'll be gone for 1,000 years in one shot. And then, when the 1,000 years are over, he'll be cast into the lake of fire, and his doom will be final. There was a physician who wrote a book called, "Your God is Too Small," and one writer said, "There needs to be a new book written called, 'Your Devil's Too Big.'"
Well, I am telling you to watch out for him. He's no threat to your salvation, he's no threat to your God. When you put the devil in his place, you put on the whole armor of God, Ephesians 6, you stand your ground, you have nothing to worry about. Steve Brown tells a story about a young boy who had been troubled by a bully in his neighborhood. One day, the bully entered the boy's yard, and the boy was terrified. After a few tense moments, the boy decided he'd had enough of this and he decided to confront the bully head-on. So he bravely walked toward him, and to his surprise, the bully seemed scared and began trembling. The boy felt empowered and thought to himself, wow, I must really be something, I must really be brave.
Then he turned around and saw his father standing on the porch behind him. And I want you to know when Satan comes, your Father's standing on the porch behind you. You don't fight Satan alone. You have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and this promise, that "no testing or temptation has taken you but such as is common to man: but that God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it".
So don't walk around being afraid of Satan. You don't have to be afraid of him, you have to be aware of him, you have to be knowledgeable about him, and don't let him put his ugly face in your life. Don't do it. Satan is nothing but a counterfeiter. That's all he is, friends. Satan doesn't have his original plan. Jesus is the light of the world, so Satan wants to be an angel of light. Jesus is the King of kings, so Satan is king over the children of pride. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, Satan is the prince of the world, the prince of the power of the air.
Jesus is the Lord my God, Satan is the god of this age. Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah, Satan is a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he may devour. I say this with all deference to Satan: He hadn't had an original thought since Genesis 3. He just keeps coming back with the same testing of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It's what he did to Adam and Eve, it's what he did to Jesus in the desert, and it's the way he's coming after us.
So the Bible says we're not to be ignorant of Satan's strategies. That's why I'm preaching this message. Be alert, stand against him, put on the whole armor of God, use the Word of God to defeat him, and don't be afraid. You don't have to be afraid. The God you serve is the Creator of the universe. I think he can handle Satan.