Revelation 20:8 - Printer Friendly

ESV: and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.

NIV: and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.

NASB: and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.

CSB: and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea.

NLT: He will go out to deceive the nations — called Gog and Magog — in every corner of the earth. He will gather them together for battle — a mighty army, as numberless as sand along the seashore.

KJV: And shall go out to deceive the nations which 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.

NKJV: and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.

A thousand years in the bottomless pit does not change Satan's character or attitude one bit. As soon as he is released, he resumes his intense opposition to God and God's people. Further, a thousand years of living in righteous, prosperous, Christ-ruled conditions does nothing to change the unbelievers' willful rejection of Christ. The presence of Jesus on earth is a special blessing, but the unregenerate human heart prefers evil to good.

When Jesus was on earth the first time, He came to His own and was rejected (John 1:11). John 3:19 explains: "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." After his release from prison Satan deceives the nations in all regions of the world. He is a master of deceit, as was demonstrated by his deception of multitudes by his puppet, the False Prophet (Revelation 13:14). He gathers the rebellious multitudes together to engage in history's final battle.

Revelation 20:4–10 focuses on the reign of Christ during the millennium: the thousand years of Christ's rule on earth, as well as what happens at the end of that era. The millennial reign begins after the Devil is imprisoned in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1–3) and before the unrighteous dead of all periods of history are judged and consigned to the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11–15). These events precede the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven (Revelation 21).

Revelation chapter 20 represents the final lesson, final judgment, and final victory of the end times. Satan is bound, but not destroyed, and released after a thousand years of peace and righteousness. Proving that no evidence or reason to believe in and follow Jesus is enough for those determined to rebel, some follow Satan and are destroyed in a rebellion. Those who died without faith in Christ, through all of history, are resurrected to face the great white throne judgment. There, they are sentenced for sin and consigned eternally to the lake of fire.

This chapter comes between the account of our Lord's decisive victory at Armageddon and the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth. It focuses on the beginning of Jesus' reign on the earth and the great white throne judgment when unbelievers from all periods of history are judged and sentenced to eternal suffering in the lake of fire. Daniel 7:18, Isaiah 11, Joel 3:16–21, Obadiah 1:21, and Micah 4:2 are just a few of the Old Testament references to the reign of Jesus on the earth. After this point in the end times, evil has been entirely and completely defeated.

The word ''revelation'' means ''an unveiling or disclosure.'' This writing unveils future events such as the rapture, three series of judgments that will fall on the earth during the tribulation, the emergence of the Antichrist, the persecution of Israel and her amazing revival, as well as Jesus' second coming with His saints to the earth, the judgment of Satan and his followers, and finally, the eternal state. This content, combined with the original Greek term apokalypsis, is why we now refer to an end-of-the-world scenario as ''an apocalypse.''