Revelation 21 • Heaven Viewed
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles at Revelation, Revelation chapter 21.
Can you imagine it was just a year or so ago that we began through the Bible in a year and we have this week and next week left. Can you imagine that what has happened in the last year would have imagined when we began this series? It's incredible and yet the Lord who knows the end from the beginning is still the one who is calling us to His purposes and giving us assurance of His abiding care and power as we would move forward. As we deal with these last two chapters in Scripture this week and next, I said to some of the staff earlier, these are such majestic chapters of Scripture, I hardly know how to do justice to what is happening as God is culminating the whole message of Scripture in these two chapters. All I know to do is to focus on the Scriptures primarily, so I'll ask that as I go through Revelation 21 this day, you probably just want to keep your Bible open because we'll march through these amazing words of comfort. Why do we need comfort in a time of challenge? Some words recently from a pastor's wife, Ann Heniger. She writes, "I feel strangely prepared for this pandemic.
It's all miserable, but it's not entirely new.
I have battled autoimmune illnesses for 25 years, spending countless hours in doctor's offices and hospitals. When my illness first hit, my pastor said, "It's easier to fight Goliath than to walk in these valleys because when Goliath is dead, you know it's over.
But you don't know when the valleys of the shadow will ever end.
This valley has been longer and darker than I ever expected.
I am used to long journeys of lament and pickaxing my way to a new normal.
But how do you pickax your way through a pandemic?" She says, "By knowing the one who promises to be with you. I'm convinced that God wastes nothing of our pain. We will emerge from this wilderness. We will be refined and redefined. What will make that happen? How will the reality of the valley and the wilderness through which we go in this world not overwhelm us? By claiming in our hearts the message of Scripture that began on the first pages and goes all the way through the end, one consistent message to the people of God, "This present evil is not your future."
We have another way, another world, and a great Savior who beckons us to a future that is so secure and so blessed that we are able to walk through these valleys and still honor Him. What is the blessing that is ahead? It is first a world without waves. Verse 1 of Revelation 21, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more."
Now why that? Why the culmination of all of the Bible's messages to say, "Finally there will be a new heaven and a new earth for the people of God," is the culminating description,
the sea will be no more. Does God not like water? No, that's not the issue. You know in the very next chapter we're going to learn that in God's provision there is a river of life for the people of God. Why no sea?
It's us understanding what the people of God in an older time would have understood about the sea. You know, even now we say to one another, "Don't make waves," which means what? Don't create upset or disruption. In a world where there are no waves, there is God's order being declared over all things. It's actually the message that John is taking in Revelation, harkening all the way back to the opening chapter of the whole Bible, Genesis chapter 1 and the second verse. After remember, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless
and void.
And it was into that chaotic formlessness that the Spirit of God began to hover over the waters and the light and the land erupted from the sea being pushed back. When the sea is pushed back, God's order begins to dominate, God's peace and purposes begin to be fulfilled. You can just picture in your mind the sea, it never stops. There's always the waves back and forth. And the people of God would have known that, but they recognized more about what the sea could do to the plans of God. The book of Exodus, also written by Moses like the book of Genesis. The people of God are released from slavery to Pharaoh. They have a bright, promised land ahead of them. Something stands between them and the promised land, there is the Red Sea. The barrier until God pushes away the sea and the people progress on dry land, not only does the absence of sea bring the peace and order of God, it brings a path out of slavery to the promises of God. And then later, remember Jesus is asleep on a boat on the Sea of Galilee. And a storm unexpectedly comes up and the waves threaten to overwhelm the boat and the disciples say to Jesus, "Lord," who is sleeping, "don't you care?"
And he stood and rebuked the wind and the waves and said, "Peace, be still." And when the waves are stilled, you don't just see the peace of God. You don't just begin to understand that what God is doing is providing freedom from the turmoil of this world. He is showing the compassion of his heart to his people. There will be no more sea, but rather there will be peace and end to the slavery of this world and the compassion of God on display. When we begin to understand the absence of waves, it's not the end of the beauty that God is revealing to his people. There's also with the absence of waves the presence of God in a world with no waves. Ephesians 2 and 3, John says, "I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God." He got through the Red Sea, but before the Promised Land there was a wilderness and the people of God feared the beasts and the desolation and the desert.
So God says to them, "I will be with you." And he guides them with pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. But then says to them, "So that you know I will never leave you nor forsake you."
In the wilderness, "I will dwell with you my people and wherever you go in the wilderness, I will indwell the tabernacle and I will be with you."
It's just a foretaste because ultimately they will get to the Promised Land. And in that Promised Land they will ultimately build the city of Jerusalem. And there there will no longer be a portable tabernacle, but rather Solomon will build a permanent temple. And when he builds that permanent temple in the Promised Land, the same God who is thundered on Sinai and has shown himself in cloud and fire to guide his people, instead makes his permanent home coming down in Shekinah glory to the temple so that even the priests cannot stay within the temple and Solomon the King falls to his knees because God is saying, "I will ever be with my people. I will never leave you or forsake you." But even that is only foretaste of the coming of the Son who when he is born, John tells us this in writing, "He said he would come and tabernacle with his people." This same Jesus, the Son of God, the creative force of the universe would come and dwell with his people in the form of a child at first, and then as a crucified and risen Savior, and still that's not the end. For he says, "Now you are my temple, and by my Holy Spirit I will indwell you. Never to leave you or forsake you as you go through the wilderness of this world." What we ultimately understand, God is saying when he not only pushes away the waves but provides his presence, he's not just peace, but in that presence the absolute commitment of the heart of God to use his power as well as his compassion for the good of his people. And that means that with the peace and the presence, there is great blessing.
Verse 4, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
No more death, or pain, or fears, or crying again.
All done.
All gone.
We have trouble picturing it, but our hearts yearn for it. Can it possibly be that we would know such peace and no such presence of God, that the reality is such a great blessing? If we can capture it, if going through the wilderness of the moment, if going through the desolation to that ultimate promised land, we perceive what God is preparing for those that he loves, the absence of waves, the absence of anything that would deny his presence, that his presence and power and compassion are there, that I and you move toward an eternity with no death and no pain, or fears, or crying again. What difference would that make with what you have to face in the wilderness of this world now?
I recognize as I come toward the end of the series, I'm coming toward the end of being your full-time pastor.
And there are aspects of that that are very painful for me.
And one of the aspects of pain is saying goodbye to very dear people.
One of them is a man I've only met once, though he writes me somewhat regularly.
He lives in Bloomington. His name is Mark. He listens to us every week.
He wrote me two weeks ago.
Today is bringing us closer to seeing Jesus face to face.
Depending on Jesus is the only way to live today. He is life and light in this dark world with 35 years of marriage, 34 of them with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
And now 30 years on a ventilator.
My purpose for still living is to keep proclaiming the eternal hope I have in Jesus.
Jesus' submission to the greatest suffering of all times has transformed my suffering into what the Bible calls this momentary light affliction, producing an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
I am filled with love and joy and peace.
There are lots of uncertainties for Susie and me, but the nearness of Jesus is bringing incomprehensible comfort and peace which will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. It is well with my soul.
Praise God.
It's somebody who understands that we're not talking about pie in the sky, by and by. We are talking about the promises of God that make this present evil world and the wilderness through which we travel, not the end of our understanding, not the end of our hope, but only the passage through which we travel to the blessings and the goodness and the greatness of our Savior with all the security that He has promised from the first page of Scripture to the last. In this time of pandemic when we can't come as close to each other as we desire, there have been some hard things that people have faced.
As people have had to put a spouse or a parent in the hospital who has passed away without being able to be close to them.
Here are those of you who have not been able to see family members who are in nursing homes or retirement places despite their own struggles that make it difficult for you because of difficulties in their bodies or in their minds.
And we get worried and fear and we tear up.
What does it mean to know the Lord is near? I will never leave you or forsake you. And this is not the final chapter. This is not the end. God is saying, "I will prepare a place for you." No more death.
No more pain.
No more fears or dying again. That is the promise of God. I think of it myself when a week ago my special needs brother who's in prison, you're my church family. I've been open and delighted at how you pray and you write my brother and it's a blessing to my family.
But even though he is younger than I, his body is wearing out far faster.
He has heart problems and stroke issues that his mind, because of his disability, he cannot understand what is happening to him.
But this he understands.
Jesus loves me. He gets that. And because he gets that, do you know what that means to me and to my family? It means that after this wilderness world, we believe that we will see and be with my brother and he will be whole in mind for the first time in his entire life.
And he will be healed in body. And he will be pure in heart. And he will have the glory of the stars of heaven. And we long for the day, even as we encourage one another in this day because the reality of the promises of our Savior who has told us what is to come and said, "I will never leave you. I will not forsake you."
Think of the words of Paul trip thousands of years into eternity. As you're living in a perfect world that has been made new in every way, you will look back now on what seems unbearable and inescapable as the briefest flash of difficulty. Ten thousand years times ten thousand with the Savior and all the perfections and the goodness and the compassion of God fully unfolded to us.
And we'll look back at the horrors and they will still be horrible, but they will have no more power over us.
After the first service and I said that, Kathy said she thought of her own mother who in her last moments pulled out of the lane of her house, had a stroke, crashed into the trees at the end of the lane.
And Kathy said, "In those ten seconds, was she aware?
Was she afraid? Was she hurting?"
We don't know.
But this we know.
From heaven's perspective, it will be the briefest fraction of a second, the bare blink of an eye compared to the glory that is unfolding and the goodness that is ours. For that reason, we don't say the reality of this wilderness is not real. We don't belittle it. Rather we say with the Apostle Paul, "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed." Why? Because we know who is with us and we know where we are bound.
And in that reality, we face the world with no waves able to make it through a wilderness of now.
Because we recognize that world will not only have no ways, it will ultimately have no wilderness either.
So much of this chapter is describing the city of God.
And we need to remember that when Israel or any people in the ancient world went through the wilderness, ultimately the place of security and food and hope and sustenance was the city. And when John describes the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, he is saying the end of this wilderness world is the city of God. Verses 9 through 11. Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me saying, "Come, I will show you." "The bride, the wife of the lamb, and he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem."
Coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God in its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clearest crystal.
In his vision, John sees Jerusalem coming down. Even though it's a new Jerusalem, it has enough resemblance to the old Jerusalem that he can identify it. It's got some things old, some things new. It has a wall and it has gates of entry.
The gates of entry are named for the twelve tribes of Israel, the covenant people that God has secured and by which he has brought the Savior.
The foundations of the wall, verse 19, were adorned with every kind of jewel. It's all precious.
But back up just for a moment and consider the meaning of verse 18. The wall was built of jasper.
That's a quartz stone, often red.
While the city was pure gold, like clear gold. Now can you just perceive for a moment what John is communicating to you. In this precious city of God, this bride of Christ that's been prepared for glory, it's surrounded by a wall the color of blood.
And inside the wall is a city so pure that the gold is like glass.
All impurities gone by the city that is surrounded by a blood covered wall that makes all within secure and perfected.
It's John telling us the bride of Christ is the people of God who have been made right by the blood of the Lamb, who have washed their robes, prepared their city, entered by the gates of the gospel message of the covenant people and the apostles that Jesus Himself put before us so that we would know how we could be secured in that city. There's so many details of that city in this chapter and we don't have time to cover them all. The city is an exact cube actually. And for all the engineers in the crowd, they're going to start taking the measurements and figuring out how many people can fit in the cube. And you know, like social distancing for heaven. You know, how do we fit?
Don't do it.
It's the perfection of God as He is saying, "Let me show you what I have prepared for my people, how perfect it is in every way." And part of that perfection is the beauty of the description of the city.
It's wonderfully described. Why?
Some of you, a few of you in the room have been with me in Israel. And you know that when you go to Jerusalem, no matter which way you go into the city, you have to go through the wilderness first.
And then you enter through a small mountain or hill pass. And as you're entering above the city, out of that wilderness, out of that desolation, suddenly you look over the city of God.
It's absolutely incredibly beautiful. This day it's all limestone white.
One day it will all be gold.
And you recognize what makes it even more beautiful is you've come out of the wilderness. There's been such desolation. There's been such matter to fear. And you come through and you say, "Oh Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, the beautiful city of God. I want to be there." And God is saying, "I'm preparing that for you. This is the beauty that is ahead and we're to know that's part of our preparation." Up on the screen is the graphic that we have used for this series of sermons for the whole last year. And it's the unfolding message of the Bible. We begin with the light of creation. And then after fall, the thorns of the fall, the wilderness through which we go through in this world, this fallen world in which we live, which ultimately was redeemed, as you see the cross of Christ by the work of the Son of God, who ultimately through His redemption will provide for us the eternal city, heaven itself. What is pictured?
But the new Jerusalem.
It's the end of the wilderness. It's the reminder for us that what we are going through despite what the world may think is not some treadmill of cyclic history.
Rather what is happening is we are marching forward to Zion.
There is progress. There's a passage. There's a path. And at the end of the journey, the purposes of God are fulfilled for those who turn to Him because they are tired of the wilderness and they want the sustenance and the good that is there. Therefore, since we want to be in, we want to know how we can come in.
And so the gates are described with as much detail and beauty as well. Why are the gates described? Verse 5, "He was seated on the throne and said, "Behold, I'm making all things new."
He said, "Write this down. These words are trustworthy and true. If you can get in the city, all things are made new.
Bodies are healed.
Sin is put away.
People have clean slates, fresh start, new world.
I want to be there. I want in through the gates. How do I get in through the gates? What do I have to do? How can I come in? Verse 6, "And He said to me," that is the Lamb to John, "It is done."
I want in.
Done.
It's done.
"Behold, not only am I making all things done, I and the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment."
If you've been through the wilderness, you want a drink.
And there's the city. And inside there is the river of life. What do I got to pay? What do I got to do to get the drink? No.
Everything's been done that needs to be done.
In your ESV it says, "It is done." It's the same word for "it is finished."
You've heard that before, haven't you? When were those words said, "It is finished."
When Jesus had fully paid the price for the penalty of our sin, when it was all done, His last words, "It is finished."
And now the one who was the Alpha and the Omega, who knew the beginning from the end, the end from the beginning, that one says, "You want in." It's done.
Come. You who are thirsty and drink from the river of life, there is no payment required. I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Really, Lord, I want that. I want the drink. I went in through the gates. What now? Who qualifies? How do I get in? Verses 7 and 8, the one who conquers will have this heritage.
And I will be his God and he will be my son.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Wait, he was saying, "Come whoever is thirsty.
Here are the gates. Come through the wilderness. Come into the city.
And then I get there with you." Wait, wait. Have you told him he lies?
Any lust or immorality in your life?
In idolatry, do you ever put anything before God in your priorities in life?
Oh, goodness.
I was so longing to be in the city, I think I just got disqualified.
I think you just got disqualified, too.
Just that there is more to understand. The one who conquers will have this heritage. There's only one person in the book of Revelation who's described as overcoming.
He is the same one who was worthy to open the scrolls. He's now the one worthy to open the gates. We are told who he is, Revelation 5, 5, "Weep no more. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. He who shed his blood according to the purposes of God for the people of God, that one was worthy to open the scrolls to show the purposes of God, and he's the one who is worthy to open the gates for the people of God."
He and he alone.
We are made right, not by our perfections, but by His, not by our overcoming, but faith that He has overcome.
I hear sermons sometimes, I must tell you, by people who will say, "Now those who overcome, if you stop lying, no more lust in your life, no more I die." Well then you qualify. Well that is not what it's saying. Then no one would qualify.
The same John who wrote this revelation has made clear to us his purpose. He said earlier, Revelation 12, verses 10-11, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, the one who accuses them day and night before our God.
But they have conquered Him by the blood of the Lamb."
Not by their blood, not by their blood, sweat and tears, not by their accomplishments, not by their works, by His. They put their faith in Him. John who writes the book of Revelation expects us to have read his epistles before, where he says clearly, 1 John 5, "For everyone who's been born of God overcomes the world." And this is the victory that overcomes the world.
Our faith.
Who is it that overcomes the world? Except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Have you overcome the world?
Not by your efforts, but by leaving that Jesus is the Son of God. Your faith is that He fulfilled God's purposes. He was the obedient Son. He is the one who qualifies and He is worthy to open the gates so that we can go in. Our only response is to say, "Jesus is the one who opens the gates and I will go in because my faith is in Him and for that reason we are sustained in all the trials and the difficulties of the now."
When my wife's father was dying, wonderful, godly man, and in hospice care, and the family gathered around and the kids would say to their father when few words were left for him, "Dad, soon you'll see your mom.
Dad, soon you'll see your dad.
Dad, soon you'll see your sister."
And then Kathy said, "Dad, soon you'll see Jesus."
And his answer was, "Yes."
It's our blessing that we don't go in our strength.
Not in our ability. We give our yes to Jesus. My faith is in Him. I believe He's accomplished what I need. All that I need, He has done. There's no payment now. It's finished.
My yes is to Him. And when that is our yes, not only do we recognize this world with no waves and this world with no wilderness, ultimately it's a world where darkness cannot encroach any longer.
It's the world where the darkness goes away, verse 22, "And I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb." Why no temple?
No more sacrifices needed. It's done. It's finished. The payment that was needed, verse 23, "And the city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the Lamb." There's no darkness in that world, not externally or internally, no darkness on my soul, no darkness in my experience. The light of the Lamb is the power of God in full compassion and power on display.
Who gets in?
They stream to it. They stream to it. Verse 24, "By its light the nations will walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Once the kings of the earth came to a stable to hail the sun, now the kings of the earth stream to the city where the sun sits upon the throne.
And we want to be there too.
The gates we are told are open at least for a time." Verse 25, "And its gates will never shut by day and there will be no night there."
Okay, first the bad news, the gates are only open during daylight hours.
Now the good news, there is no night.
The gates are always open.
And who comes? Verse 26, "They will bring these nations into the city, the glory and honor of the nations."
It's not your sin that will inhibit you. It's not your race. It's not your region. It's not your ethnicity. It's not your nationality. The nations come to join those of every background. The darkness of our past or of our world do not inhibit us.
It's the beauty of God saying, "The gates are wide open.
Come unto me, all you who are a laborer and heavy laden, I will give you rest for your soul."
If you know that, if you see it, you know there has to be an implicit warning. If that's what's inside the city, what's outside the city?
The wilderness is still there.
Verse 27, "But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false."
The only ones who enter are those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
I want to end.
What's the ticket?
Is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life?
Because outward the city, we've already been told, is the trash heap, the place in the ancient city outside where the valley of Gehenna was, where they burned the trash and the beggars picked through the ruins.
Do you really not want in the city?
You want in the city?
But you have to have your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
How is that done?
You say you're yes to Jesus.
You say, "God, you provided Jesus for me, and my faith is in Him.
I'm not even going to write my name. You write my name." It's the Lamb's Book of Life. Can I trust Him to make my way?
O people of God, my family in Christ, what dearer gospel could we claim that our Savior has said? "I know the wilderness of this world. I know the waves can threaten to overwhelm you, but I have provided a city, and its perfections and its blessings are yours without payment, without qualification, other than your yes to Jesus. Believe that He provides the way, and He writes on the book, "This one is mine.
Let Him enter.
Let her enter, for this is the one who has said yes to the Lamb, and the sun will shine upon that one forevermore." Father, I pray for the people who gather here.
We are in a world of trial.
It is wilderness in many different dimensions for so many of us, but you have provided safe passage in a destination of such beauty and glory and blessing and love. We have trouble capturing it. But this we know, our Jesus is there, and He will welcome His people and bless them and reunite them so that there is no more death, no more pain, no more fears or crying again. This is our destiny, and for it we thank you.
And if there's any that need the warning this day that they believe that they don't need this Jesus and they don't need entry into His gates, Father, turn their hearts another way. Turn them to the path that is faith in the Lord Jesus, the one who will welcome them.
Those who are thirsty, He will say, "Come and drink from these waters of life."
There's no payment.
Trust Him.
And by faith in Him, you will be with Him now and forever.
Amen.