Revelation 21

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it's my great joy and privilege to be leading us through Revelation 21 today.

So I hope you'll turn there in your Bibles.

Revelation, a book of uh several different genres of literature, all wrapped up in one.

It's beautiful and complex.

It's apocalyptic literature.

That simply means an unveiling, and it's a uh it's also translated into English as revelation.

That's why we call that this book that by that name.

It's a revelation of Jesus Christ, though.

And uh it's also prophetic, and so it has aspects of prophecy, end times prophecy, as well as reflecting back on what God has said.

As a matter of fact, uh uh while it's the 66th book in the library that we call the Bible, um, it draws from almost all of the other 65 books.

And so even today in this chapter, we'll find uh great parallels in Isaiah uh chapter 65 and 66.

So uh you just we have a wealth of references to the rest of scripture in the book of Revelation.

It's also epistolary, that is, it's a it's an epistle, it's a letter.

And of course, we read that in the beginning uh in chapters two and three when we had those seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor.

Revelation overflows with vivid imagery, shocking signs and symbols in some ways, uh, mixed metaphors uh all over the place, which is interesting.

That's what makes it so fascinating.

Uh it's eye-popping, heart thumping, you know, mind-blowing literature.

And it has just been such a delight to study it.

Some people look at it and read it and uh uh and they find themselves worrying about the future, but that's not the intent at all.

And I've been trying to convince you and persuade you of that as we go along because it's it's as you look at it and read it as a whole, um, you f what you find is not that it leads you to worry, but it just like it does uh the Apostle John, it leads you to drop to your knees in wonder uh and respond to God in worship.

So uh worry out the window and uh bring in the wonder and the worship and let's uh let's send our worship to the Lord, to the Lamb who was slain, who's risen again and who uh will be coming to reign forever and ever again.

So we don't want to become so fascinated with the signs and the symbols and the sequence of end times events that we miss the Savior.

And it's really about Jesus.

It's a revelation of Jesus.

Let me pray for us as we get started here with Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

This is a prayer that uh one of my mentors in terms of Bible teaching, anyway, John Stott, used to pray.

Uh, Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.

May your word be our rule, our standard.

May your spirit be our teacher.

May your greater glory be our supreme because it's concerned through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

And amen.

Well, some of you, as we come to a book like this, you may have been wondering, uh, looking at the world the way it is, and uh um as I'm recording this, we're in a year called 2020, which some people wish would just come to an end right away.

Uh you know, um, there's a lot that's going on that's crazy.

There's a lot, of course, uh of folks who are disoriented because they've been uh displaced in a lot of ways.

Uh there is a bunch of acrimony because we're in an election year, so there's a lot of politics swirling around, and some of it is uh is just at a heightened pitch.

And so there's uh a bit of fear, a bit of despair.

And that's one of the reasons I'm so glad we're in this book, because this takes our eyes off of our little slice of time-space history and uh raises our sights to uh a sovereign God who's in charge of all of human history and um and helps us to see uh uh with the eyes of faith what great hope we have.

So we're calling our study the hope of glory, and uh that's because all of this is headed in that direction.

Um I've just finished reading a book by Oz Guinness entitled Carpe Diem Redeemed.

Oz, who was born and raised in China during a really particularly difficult time, um, talks in that book about three different views of time.

And so even as we're studying the book of Revelation, I'm thinking about these kinds of things.

He talks about uh cyclical time, uh chronological time, and covenantal time.

Uh cyclical view is that uh everything's just kind of comes back around.

And uh uh some Eastern religions and some Eastern thought um uh would espouse this view that everything's just kind of a cycle and sort of the circle of life that just is a never-ending sort of circle, keeps going back around and back around, that sort of thing.

Uh, the chronological view is uh uh, as he calls it, uh leaving God out of the picture becomes a naturalistic, atheistic, linear, temporal uh view of time that just goes like this, and rather than circling back around, it just comes to an end and fades to black, and so there's no meaning or purpose.

And Oz talks about the cyclical view, the chronological view, and then the covenantal view.

And I love that in this book, it really has changed my perspective.

The covenantal view of the Bible and of the God of the Bible is that he created all of this with a telos or a purpose in mind, and so that he has uh uh a schedule that he's keeping history on, and he's sovereign, and so he's in charge of everything that goes on, even he's sovereign over the suffering, even over the difficult stuff.

And we turn to him with our uh thanksgiving, but we also turn to him with our cries for mercy and for help and for comfort and for hope.

And we've been reading all about that in this book we call revelation.

Um, the problem, of course, with humanity is that we keep trying to control the outcomes.

We keep wanting to be the one in charge of the uh, you know, what happens in the end.

And um, and this is why it's both humbling and at the same time hopeful that there's a God who's revealed himself in the person and work of Jesus Christ and who has offered us this amazing gift of salvation, available to you, available to me, by grace through faith in Christ, the ultimate Lamb of God.

All right, so I'm I'm gonna, before we get too far down the road here, let's turn to Revelation 21.

If we were gonna title this chapter, I would probably call it Setting All Things Right, because now we're we we've got two chapters left in this book.

And uh it's real hard for me not to do both chapters in one day, but I just don't have time.

But this chapter in particular and the next one, the this is a wonderful way for this book to end.

And uh I hope you'll just lean in.

Uh, it begins like this.

Then I saw, the apostle John says, these are all, you know, a cycle of visions that he's been having, and that that God keeps instructing him to write this down.

He'll do it one more time, God will tell him to do that one more time here in this chapter.

But John begins by saying, and I saw.

He says that about 50 times in the book of Revelation.

So he's actually recalling all of this vision, writing it down as he is on the Isle of Patmos, and uh not with many creature comforts at all.

I mean, he's in a situation there where he's imprisoned for his faith.

He's imprisoned because he believes the gospel and trusts and hopes in Jesus Christ.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any C S E A.

We can talk about that in just a second.

So this is interesting, especially when you think about well, what is God's purpose?

Hmm.

What is the telas, the teleological, if in terms of philosophy, the the sort of meaning, the purpose, the goal, if you will.

Um, what is the design of God for human history?

Well, here he says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The first one had passed away, and there's no longer any sea.

And I saw, there it is again, the holy city, New Jerusalem.

Ah, this is beautiful.

Um, he says, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride, adorned for her husband.

And I heard, and he says that often in the book of Revelation as well.

So he's he's got great recall because these things are so visceral to him in this vision.

It's it's it's it's very tangible in the way he's seeing things, he's hearing things, and he's able to write them down as well.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them.

Now, if you're familiar with your Bible at all, if you've ever read through the one-year Bible, if you've ever heard the term covenant at all, you'll recognize this as covenantal language.

This is God saying, I will be your God and you will be my people.

And uh this is God making uh just a beautiful, um, gracious offer to us, his creatures, uh, our creator reaching in and speaking to us here into his creation and making an offer to us.

He wants to be our God, and he wants us to be his people.

And this is repeated throughout scripture uh over and over again.

So we see here um that God speaks as a covenantal God, and there's the covenantal view of time, see, as we were talking about earlier with uh Oz's book.

And he shall wipe away, verse four, every tear from their eyes.

I love this, and there shall no longer be any death.

I really love that.

Um lost a good friend this week, even, and some of you uh certainly have experienced loss uh as well.

As I'm saying, all of this, I'm quite aware of that as a pastor.

Uh that many of us have experienced the pain of loss, and many of us have uh have grieved uh and mourn.

And yet here's a promise that the end purpose, the tilos of God, the God of the Bible, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, the God who created everything out of nothing, the God who's equipped, capable, ready, and now in we're seeing he's intentionally planning to wipe away death itself, sweep it away.

I love this.

Uh, and it fills me with hope.

Uh, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall no longer be death, there shall no longer be any mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, or crying or pain.

The first things, or the former things, some of your translations will say, have passed away.

And he who sits on the throne said, and that's interesting because what was just said may have been said by an angel.

It came from the throne.

It may be the angel, it may be the Lamb of God who spoke that part.

We're not told.

It's just a voice from the throne.

Here, though, it's he who sits on the throne.

This is either God the Father or the Lamb who sits on the throne as well.

And here's what he who sits on the throne says, Verse 5.

Behold, and that's one of my favorite words in the Bible.

It's like, think about this, or imagine this, or let me blow your mind again, because I'm about to tell you something that God's going to do.

I'm about to tell you something that God can do and God will do.

Uh, behold, I am making all things new.

And he said, Write, for these words are faithful and true.

And I don't know about you, but in this day and age, there's nothing I can think of that would be more refreshing to my soul, more encouraging to my mind to hear from God a word that is faithful and true.

We've heard so many words from others that weren't faithful that didn't prove to be true.

And so here's the God of heaven, the God of the Bible, um, the God who loves you and me so much that he came on a rescue mission himself for us.

Yeah.

And he says, I'm making all things new, and it's faithful and true.

I love that.

That's great.

Verse six.

And he said to me, It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

And I love that because we we read in uh chapter one, uh verse eight.

We went, we this is so it's almost like book ends, the beginning of the book.

Jesus says, I'm the alpha and omega.

And here at the end of the book, he says, I'm the alpha and omega, I'm the beginning and I'm the end.

And so he is just just one more time making one of those bodacious claims that if it weren't true, we should dismiss Jesus and just ignore him and and burn every book that was ever written about him.

But if it's true, if he's the beginning and he is the end, if he's the alpha and the omega, um, then we should sit up straight.

We should be able to listen to him and have such joy flooding our hearts because it's faithful and true what he's saying, you see.

He's the beginning and the end.

He's the one that will have the first word and the last word.

And so he has revealed himself to us.

And here he one more time reminds John and us by extension that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega.

I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.

This is verse six.

It's worth underlining.

There's so much there that's so beautiful.

I will give to those who are thirsty.

Is your soul thirsty today?

Mine is.

Is your heart, your mind?

Are you are you thirsty in so many ways today?

I am.

And so I'm eager to hear from him.

I'm eager to turn to his word and to hear from him and have him speak to me and fill me with this water, this spring of the water of life.

And the most beautiful description of it is the is the is the way it's conveyed to us by God.

It's conveyed without cost.

Oh man.

Without cost.

Again, these are words that echo throughout the pages of scripture.

And here is the God who's not saying, let me uh let me open up this long scroll, all these ideas of all these rules you have to follow before I'm going to give you any of the water of life.

No, no, no.

Without cost, this is grace, and that's why it's so amazing.

Verse 7, he who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

Now he says.

And so it's it's very much again this relationship.

Our Father who art in heaven, you, his sons or his daughters, me, his son.

And he is the one who has made this all possible.

Um, even the part of us overcoming, it's his power at work in our lives, you see.

It's the life of Jesus blossoming in me and in you that enables us to overcome it all.

He says, on the other hand, there will be those who'll be cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars.

Their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

And that's quite sobering, isn't it?

Um, verse 8.

But what he's essentially saying there is that people who find their identity in trying to do this all themselves, self-salvation.

I'm gonna manipulate and control all the outcomes myself.

I don't need a God, I don't need a redeemer, I don't need a savior.

Um, I'm gonna center my life on what I want to center my life on, whether, whether you think, you know, whether anyone else thinks it's abominable, or uh whether uh other people try to get in my way, I'm gonna run over top of them.

And I'll exploit and use others.

That's why it says uh nothing immoral, as well, those who are uh immoral persons, okay?

Sorcerers, idolaters, and liars.

And their part is in the lake of fire.

That's with the beast, with the dragon, with the great prostitute, with the false prophet, all of these images that we've seen, these mixed metaphors that all stand for Babylon, the city that sets itself against God.

And uh he's just reminding us one more time that he is the Alpha Omega, he's the one that comes to offer us life in his name.

But those of us who choose to refuse will get what we want.

He will allow us to have what we want, life without him for eternity.

Verse 9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, and here's John telling us what one of those seven angels who have reappeared yet one more time.

And this time the angel says to John, Come here, I'll show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And so we get a little more specifics here on the lamb, or on the bride, rather.

Um, the bride is the wife of the lamb.

And again, if you get literal with everything, it just gets really weird really fast.

But if you remember that all of these mixed metaphors, you know, that we have in the book of Revelation, we have two cities that are compared and contrasted, Babylon and Jerusalem.

Babylon, the city that sets itself against God, Jerusalem, the holy city where the people of God dwell.

Doesn't mean that Jerusalem in the past has always been a holy city full of holy people, doing all of the right thing.

No, that's not what it means at all.

It just means to use that title, Jerusalem, as the people of God, and that God wants to come and dwell among his people, as he did with the ancient Jews.

God was faithful, even though his people were often faithless.

And so here the angel says, Come here, I'll show you the bride, the wife, and the lamb.

And so this is an and that's another insight into this whole thing of wrapping up human history and eternity and heaven and all of that, is that it's not just an escape off to some great big black hole in the in the in the universe up in the sky there, some some zip code, limited zip code up there in the stars.

No, it's a relationship, it's a marriage, it's a wedding feast.

And God loves us so much that he wants us to become his bride.

And so we have we have these mixed metaphors.

We have the the contrast of Babylon and Jerusalem, but we also have in the book of Revelation the contrast between two women.

We have the great harlot who represents Babylon again, setting itself against God.

And then we have so the great harlot, and then in contrast to that, we have the bride of Christ.

Ah, yeah.

And that's the church, that's God's people.

Um that's you if you've trusted him.

That's me as I have trusted him.

And so the the angel tells John, I'm gonna show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

And that's all being unveiled to us here in the book we call Revelation, verse 10.

He carried me away in the spirit, this angel did, to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

And so he's already said that he's seen the new heaven and the new earth and that old things have passed away.

And he's already said, verse 2, I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem.

Now he's saying it again.

And this vision continues to be um multifaceted, and it's from a lot of different perspectives, and again, apocalyptic, prophetic, and epistolary literature all wrapped up in one.

And so, yes, what we're getting is a lot of different angles and insights, and they're all meant to inspire us for the hope of glory that we find in Jesus Christ.

So here he this angel takes him away and shows him up on this great high mountain, the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven from God.

And this is how it's described at verse 11 having the glory of God.

Ooh, interesting.

So this city that he's looking at coming down out of the heavens from God has the glory of God.

Interesting.

Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal clear jasper.

Now, Jasper's not crystal clear.

But if you can get the idea that the sort of color of it is translucent and it's all sparkly, crystal clear, if you will, like that.

All right.

It had a grate and a high wall, the city does, with 12 gates, and at the twelve at the gates, twelve angels, and names were written on them, which are those of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

And so, again, sort of a look back, a reflection back onto the uh uh the Old Testament and the 12 tribes of Israel, which is really powerful.

Uh, the all of God's covenant people from the from the past.

There were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.

And so we're even told how it's laid out.

The wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

And if I'm John the Apostle, I'm looking and I'm going, hey, hey, that's that's my name right there.

You know, that's just got to be overwhelming.

Not because he feels all huffy and puffy like he belongs there.

John, we know John.

We've uh we've if you've read John's gospel and the and and and 1 John, 2nd John, and 3 John in this book of Revelation, you understand one thing.

That's that's a guy who continues to be humbled.

He's just crumbled and humbled before the God of the universe all the time and before the Lamb.

He's overwhelmed.

He calls himself the one whom Jesus loved in the Gospel of John all the time.

He doesn't even use his name that much, you know, his own name.

He's not trying to build his own name.

He's pointing to the Lamb.

He's constantly doing that.

And so I could just see him being overwhelmed that his name would be there because good grief.

I don't belong there.

Good, that's not the kind of material.

My name's not the kind of material.

None of our names is the kind of material that we would think would make for good foundation stones in the city of God.

And folks, that's the beauty of this whole thing.

See, heaven is populated with people who don't deserve to be there.

They're there by the grace of God and by the victory, not that they've won, but by the victory of the Lamb who was slain, who was risen again, and who now reigns forever and ever.

And he uh has written the names of his apostles on the twelve foundation stones.

That's amazing.

That's mind-blowing.

Well, the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall.

And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width.

And he measured the city with the rod.

1500 miles, its length and width and height are equal.

So it's like a cube, is basically what's being described here.

And what does that remind us of?

But the Holy of Holies in the ancient Jewish temple.

It too was a cube in size and shape.

And so it's just really powerful to think that what God has done is thrown open uh the Holy of Holies and invited us to come in, all of us to come in.

Even though we don't deserve to be, no, we don't deserve to be there.

But he's still inviting you, he's inviting me.

Who wouldn't want that?

Who would reject that?

You know, it's just astounding to me to think of that.

Um, and so he measures all of this.

It comes out to be a cube.

He measured the wall, 72 yards according to human measurements.

I love it that he throws that in there, which are also angelic measurements, and that's awesome too.

So, you know, Michael the archangel pulls out his tape measure, and John the Apostle pulls out his tape measure, and I don't know whether they're retracting tape measures or they got like a laser reader or whatever it is, but those are we're on the same standard with the angels, evidently, when it comes to measurements like that.

Verse 18.

And the material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.

The foundation stones of the city were of the wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.

And now he's going to describe some of those.

The first foundation stone was jasper, the second, sapphire, the third, um, Chalcedony.

That's like a sky blue.

The fourth was emerald.

Um, the fifth was sardonyx, the sixth, sardius, kind of a ruby color, the seventh was chrysalite, sort of a blue-green.

The eighth um uh was beryl.

I think that's like a turquoise.

The ninth, topaz, the tenth, chrysoprot praise.

I have no clue what that is, and the eleventh, Jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst, which is, I think, like a purple or a violet.

And there are 12 stones.

And I'll remind you, like we've seen throughout the study of the book of Revelation, it's not a prophetic jigsaw puzzle for us to solve.

It's not even a numerical code or cipher for us to crack, but the numbers can be interesting and they can mean something, they can represent something as they did to the first century Jews who were reading this to begin with.

And so the number 12, the 12 tribes is the complete people of God in the Old Testament times.

And the number 12 of the 12 disciples, 12 apostles, again, a number of completeness or perfection, fullness, if you will.

And so here we have 12 gates, and here we have 12 foundation stones.

And it's just amazing that this is woven in and throughout the whole thing.

Verse 21.

And the 12 gates were 12 pearls.

Each one of the gates were a was a single pearl.

And can you imagine a pearl that big?

I mean, wow, that's amazing.

Yeah.

Um, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

And I saw this is fascinating.

I saw no temple in it in this city.

No temple in the holy city.

Why?

He tells us.

It's great.

I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

You see, it's it's not about the building.

And we've been displaced from our building for about six months because of this pandemic.

It's not about the building.

Whoa.

And you know, for years and years and years, I think a lot of churches um made it about their building.

Yeah.

Committees would argue and fight over the color of the carpet or the or where to place the communion table or whatever, or whether we should have, you know, um plane windows, or we should have stained glass windows, and what those stained glass windows then should depict, you know, and on and on and on.

We find so many things to argue about and fight about.

And here it's not about the building.

Why?

Because the only proper object of our worship is the Lord Himself and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Wow.

No temple needed, no lights up in the sky needed.

And for them, remember, that's they didn't have multiple lights and flashlights and all kinds of laser lights and all that stuff.

They didn't have any of that stuff.

For them, they had to light a candle or hope in and trust in uh the lights up in the heaven, heavenly realm.

Okay, so so the sun during the day, the moon at night, they just hoped in the stars and all that sort of thing.

That's why there was so much worship of those things.

That's the only way they could see anything.

But here, the telas of God, the end purpose of God is that we would see in him, we would find in him everything we need.

Everything beautiful, true, everything good.

And this is fascinating.

He becomes actually the lamp that the lamb becomes the lamp that illuminates uh uh the new heavens and the new earth.

Verse 24.

And the nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.

And by the way, just isn't it interesting to notice that there's still some organization.

There's there's this isn't just us sitting on clouds uh strumming harps and singing kumbaya into eternity, that which sounds quite boring to me.

No, there's still a city, there's still stuff to do.

Uh, there's still things like beauty and uh and communication and worship and singing and dancing.

I love this, it's awesome.

And in the uh the nations will walk by its light, the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and in the daytime, for there shall be no night there.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

What a great idea that would be.

Its gates shall never be closed.

And you see what he said there's there, you're never gonna get so tired that you need it to be dark so you can go to sleep.

You know, I'm I'm a guy that wakes up at the first drop of any kind of light, any drop of sunlight peeping through the windows.

I don't know if you are that way or not.

Everybody's not that way, you know.

But the idea is that when when we when this all comes about, when the Lord comes to set all things right, there's no need for darkness, and I'm just fine with that.

Oh yeah.

There'll be no more disagreements about whether we leave the light on on the TV, you know, between spouses and no, no disagreements about the thermostat, you know, keeping, I want 68, no, you want 72, you know, people arguing back, and there's none of that anymore.

Why?

Because everything's going to be set right, you see.

I love this.

Ah, that's just uh makes you long for the day when things are set right, right?

In the daytime, there'll be no night there.

Its gates will never be closed.

You see, God has literally blown it wide open and invites you and invites me to come to him, to worship him, to trust in him, to hope in him.

Did you did I forget to do that from time to time?

Yeah.

I do.

And even in times like we're in right now, it's so easy to forget it.

Because we happen to think that this little slice of time is so big and important, and everything matters.

Everything's at a heightened pitch.

And yet here comes revelation and says, nah, let me set your eyes on things that really matter.

Let me set your eyes way higher than this little slice of time.

Wow.

And the nations and the kings of the nations are all going to be walking by this light.

Its gates are never closed.

Everyone is welcome.

Everyone.

I've said it before.

The most often repeated comment in heaven on the first day is going to be, What are you doing here?

And it's going to be said about me.

It's going to be asked about me as much as anybody or more than most.

Because it's just going to be surprising.

Like John's surprised to see his name on one of the cornerstones or foundation stones.

We're all going to be, we're just going to be overawed at the amazing grace of God in Christ.

Nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it.

But only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Wow.

Okay, that's the end of that chapter.

It starts like this.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Uh, echoing sort of, you could if just go back and look at Isaiah 65 and 66, you'll see the same thing.

Uh from the all the way from back in the eighth century BC.

God's been talking about this for a long time, folks.

This has been on his calendar.

And while we don't know the day or the hour, he does.

And um, and and that's not Revelation isn't about trying to get us to figure that out and to and to sort of find what's the exact sequence of the end time.

No, it's not about that.

It's about us placing our hope in the Lamb of God.

Ah, and then the sovereign God of all, who created everything, who's the Alpha and the Omega, trusting in the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, who's granted, who's who's brought us into the family of God, the body of Christ, who's transferred us from this realm of darkness into the realm of his brilliant light and the light of his salvation.

Ah, yeah, this is great.

What's heaven?

Where is heaven?

Uh is heaven just a place where all the good people go who didn't smoke, drink, or chew, or uh go with other people who do or whatever.

Um, if so, if that's what heaven is, I'm I'm probably not all that interested in it.

Maybe you wouldn't be either.

Um the Bible's view of heaven couldn't be more different.

Here in Revelation, we start to catch a vision for what heaven will be like and who it is that will be there.

And it's mind-blowing.

Um, it is just amazing grace.

Here's Eugene Peterson.

He said the biblical story began quite logically with a beginning, but now it draws to an end, not quite so logically, with a beginning.

The sin ruin creation of Genesis is restored in the sacrifice-renewed creation of revelation.

Yeah, that's so good.

Yeah.

Um, so the first uh John says here, the first heaven and the first earth have passed away.

Um the first or the former.

In other words, the broken, the wrecked, the ruined by sin's rebellion is going to be completely uh uh washed away, or maybe I should say it this way, transformed.

Uh, because this word for new here, there's actually a couple of Greek words uh in uh that we translate into English as new.

And one of them is about uh renewed, or um, and another one is about replaced.

And this isn't replaced, this is about God renewing all things.

Um, and as I said, John uses several different images um throughout the entire book to show us what's actually going to happen.

And you got to take all of those mixed metaphors together, and you got to see that what he's doing is that we're not escaping away to something, and he's he's just bringing down here the new heaven and the new earth.

And he's going to simply renew everything.

Um, he's going to make it whole, if you will, whole and holy, whole and the way it was supposed to be, because sin has stained it, wrecked, and ruined it.

And he's coming now to set all things right.

Revelation is not about some kind of Platonic dualism where the material world is all bad.

So get rid of that and never have it again.

And let's just move on to the immaterial world.

That's not the book of Revelation at all.

That's one of the reasons why I love the way that he says new heaven and new earth.

Okay.

He holds it together.

God holds it together, okay?

He keeps it together as well.

Yeah.

So Michael Wilcox says in the message of Revelation, the city shown to us here is what we shall be in the age to come, what in a sense we already are on the level of the heavenlies, and what in our earthly experience God is presently making of us.

And so God, who is intending to set all things right, has already begun the great reversal when Jesus came the first time.

You see, the king has come, and so the reversal has begun.

And now, when he comes the second time, that reversal will be, and his kingdom will be unfolded in its fullness, and everything will be set right.

And I'm so excited about all of that.

Let's take a look, if you will, at what does that look like as it's described here in Revelation 21?

What does the holy city look like?

Well, it's the holy city, it's called the bride, it's called the wife of the lamb.

And again, we have a um a contrast to the unholy city of Babylon, to the dragon or the beast and the and the and the great prostitute and all of that chaos of that city that sets itself against God.

And here we have the way that that uh the holy city, the New Jerusalem, is described as the wife of the Lamb and the bride.

It's beautiful.

It's filled with the abiding presence of God.

It's emptied of all sorrow and suffering in verse four.

You see, if Christ is your Savior, this world right here is the closest you'll ever get to hell.

If you're trying to save yourself, if you want to be a part of Babylon and live your life apart from God, God will allow you to.

But this world right here is as close as you'll ever get to heaven.

Wow.

That's pretty sobering.

Yeah.

It's all things made new, is what's on the agenda of God when he wraps up human history.

And Revelation 21 is beautiful for inspiring us and filling us with this hope of glory that everything can be set right and all glory will go to God.

And we will not only see it, but we will experience it as we're a part of the city of God, the eternal city of God.

Um, we're described this city of God is described in verse 11.

Look at that.

Having the glory of God, made precious and pure, is described from verse 12 all the way down to verse 21.

And it's really amazing and in great detail.

Um, God and the Lamb are the focus of all worship.

See, that's as it should be, verse 22.

Every single one of us were created and designed as worshipers.

You are a worshiper, even if you don't even believe in God.

You are a worshiper, you're worshiping something.

It's either God or it's something that isn't God.

What is it?

You could you could be worshiping yourself, you could be worshiping the culture, you could be worshiping music or the arts, you could be worshiping intelligence, read human reads.

There's so many things.

You could be worshiping money or sex or power, social power, social um success and and and and sort of being right all the time and all that.

There's so many things we can worship that are not God.

And here, verse 22 reminds us that God and the Lamb will be the focus of worship.

The eternal hope of the glory of God is described in verses 23 through 27.

The apocalyptic vision shows us that the eternal destiny of the people of God is to live forever with God in a city where every evil, every sin, and every result of sin, okay, has been removed.

This is the city of God where every need is met, every delight is enjoyed the way it's supposed to be enjoyed, and everything is made new, all things new.

I love this.

No more conflict, no more outrage, no more domestic violence, no more acrimony.

There will be beauty abounding.

Um who's in?

I'm in.

C.S.

Lewis says this.

If you read history, you'll find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in.

Aim at the earth, and you'll get neither.

And that's so true, folks.

Think about it before you turn on the the TV, the cable, the news, before you listen to that album, watch that movie, engage in that conversation, go to that place, indulge in that pleasure, whatever it might be.

Think about all of those things.

And ask yourself the question Is this in some way the kind of thing that's going to lead me to trust in, to hope in, to put my confidence in God more?

Or is this the kind of thing that is going to shape, mold, and form me for fear, for despair, for anger?

Wow.

That's all really challenging to me.

And at the same time, really hopeful.

Yeah.

Oz says this, the term apocalyptic has become synonymous for catastrophic.

But its real meaning is not catastrophic, but unveiling.

The catastrophic element will certainly be present at the end times because the Bible warns realistically that contrary to the Enlightenment Creed of steady improvement, the forces of diabolical evil will persist and even rise to a horrifying crescendo during the end of history, the final evil.

But that same catastrophic Climax will end in both victory and a dramatic unveiling.

It will be the moment when the whole world will marvel as they see God unveil the meaning of history and the cosmic purposes that He has been working toward from the beginning.

And it looks more and more beautiful to me with each passing day that I'm here.

And I want to turn to him.

I want to continue to place my hope and faith and confidence in him because one day I'll be trading in all my sorrows for the joy of salvation in Christ in a way that I couldn't even begin now to imagine it.

How beautiful it will be to experience it in its fullness, you see.

One day I'll be trading in all of my sadness and all my tears and all my mourning and all my anger.

Yeah.

And all my outrage.

I'll trade all of that in for a pair of dancing shoes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'll dance in his presence.

I'll march a little bit too.

You know, some of you know I like to march.

I'll probably march around a little bit too.

Um, one day I'll be trading in all of my masks.

Yeah.

You will be too.

We'll be trading in all of our masks, those of us who've trusted and hoped in Jesus.

And we'll be trading those masks in for an all-new wardrobe of the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Hmm.

I want to close with this scripture from 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 to 24.

Kim brought it to my attention this week.

And I said, Yeah, that's a great way to end.

May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together spirit, soul, and body, and keep you fit for the coming of our Master Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he who calls you, and he also will bring it to pass.

See, folks, the burden is on you, is not on you to make all things new.

It's the Lord that's going to do that.

It's the Lord that has revealed himself to us, like he did to John.

It's the Lord who has invaded space-time history and brought redemption in his hands to you and to me.

It's made he's made a beautiful offer to us.

It's Jesus and Jesus Christ alone who can offer that to us, as we saw earlier here in the book of Revelation.

He is that amazing sort of three-part person himself.

He's the Lion of Judah, who's victorious in every way.

He's victorious over death itself.

He's the lion of Judah.

He's the root of David.

And he's the Lamb who was slain.

He's the root of David, means he came to be one of us.

Christ did that.

And he's the Lamb of God who's slain.

Jesus Christ, the ultimate Lamb of God.

Put your trust in him.

He gave his life for you, that you might have life in his name.

Amen.

Amen.