Now who is the ruler here? It's Jesus Christ. All his goods. That's got to be a lot. All authority in heaven and earth he said, is given to me. All his goods is everything. If you can see it, it's his, the whole universe is his; so we think: oh well, so what? What's the deal? Let's just go through, and have a look what the deal will be, and I want to help you just shift and see a few things. Now you notice then that each of the servants, in the three different parables, are rewarded; so in here he's made ruler over all His goods. With the parable of the virgins, they enter into the marriage feast, of which communion is a picture of one day - you see every time you have communion, have something to eat and drink, it's a picture that one day, there is a great banqueting feast with the Lord - but you've got to qualify for it.
Well come on. Nothing's automatic. The invitation's there. The call is there. How we deal with our life is our responsibility. We've got to choose how we'll respond; so in the third one, what's at stake is, he said: I will make you ruler over little - now ruler over much, in the parable in Luke 19, ruler over little, ruler over 10 cities; so let's get a picture now of what is at stake for you. I can't give it all in one session because it's far too vast. There's too much in the Bible about it, but we'll open up a little bit today, and see if we can just get a bit worked out with you.
So in Revelations, Chapter 20, so go to Revelations, Chapter 20, alright? This is an event yet to come. This is the future. I hope I'd see it in my lifetime, it's fantastic if it does - however, the more I've looked at it, the more shaky I've got. I thought: dear Lord Jesus, I need to repent. I have. I was repenting this morning, as I was preparing the message. Oh Lord Jesus, oh whoa whoa whoa [Laughter] why? Because you suddenly gain eternal perspective. Every time you gain eternal perspective, it shifts how you think about what you're doing, and how you live, so we need to get eternal perspective.
So Revelations 20 verse 1: I saw an angel - now this is John, in the spirit, on the Lord's da,y getting vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, so don't get thinking the book of Revelation is full of beasts and antichrists and stuff. That's not the main focus of it. The book is the book of Revelation of Jesus Christ, and a coming kingdom. That's what the book is really about. The others are part of it of course, an important part. Now - I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hands. An angel with a key and a chain - and then what does he do? He laid hold on the dragon, the serpent of old, who's the devil and Satan, bound him a thousand years, cast him in the bottomless pit, shut him up, set a seal on him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. And then after that, he's released a little while.
So notice, it's not even God that does this. He just sends an angel to deal with the devil. So that changes your thinking about who's got the power. Sometimes we think: man, the devil's really strong, and he's fired. God's fighting against him. No! The devil's just limited, and Jesus already has provided everything we need for our salvation, and so at the right timing God sends an angel, said: here's your mission, go down there, chain him all up, and all his mates, and pop them down there, and put a cap on them for a thousand years. That's how quickly it's over.
And it says what the devil is doing at the moment: the devil is deceiving the nations. That means, behind all of the activities you see in the earth in every city, every town and every village; there is a spiritual world, which is influencing what goes on in that city and town and village; that there is a structure of governance in the spirit world, demonic structure, that is influencing the decisions that are made. Then it tells us that - Ephesians 2: the whole world walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is working in the children of disobedience. So one of the reasons we have such problems in the world, is the influence of demonic structures in the spirit world. So what He's saying effectively is this: at the beginning of a thousand years, I'll send an angel down, and he's going to do these things, going to do four things to him - going to grab the devil. First of all he grabs him - grabs him like that - lay hold on him. Isn't that good? - lay hold on him. You change your thinking about the devil, just an angel comes down, lays hold on him, and then wrapped him up in chains, downed him for a thousand years, cast him in the bottomless pit - down you go! Just like that, he's got no - and then shut him in, closed the door, put a seal on it, he can't get out. He's just stuck, can't do a thing, thousand years. Isn't that good?