We finally come today in this book of Revelation to what is the hope and the joy of every Christian who is thinking rightly. If we wanted to, we could spend a significant amount of time that we can't do just talking about what we hate about this age that we live in. Every one of you if you really give it even a small amount of thought would be able to shout out Something that is a burden for you that you find yourself bitter or or hating or discouraged over Whether you're wealthy or you're poor whether you are healthy or you are ill No matter what is your lot in life all? given time become well acquainted with sin and grief and We see the effects of sin in the lives of people. We see it in cancer. We see it with crime. We see it with the lies that people tell you and the lies that you tell others. We see it in lost dreams and broken bodies and broken relationships and loneliness and fear. All of these and countless others are just the reality of what it means to be human in this age. But what I am asking you today is to hear me. More importantly, what I'm asking you today is would you hear the word of God? I believe that if you will hear and heed what I have to say today, that it will stabilize your faith and enlarge your heart and encourage you, especially those of you who are right now very weary. So let's read. You just follow along as I take you through chapter 21. We're going to go to verse 5 in chapter 22. But I want you just to hear and reflect as I read these words. And 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 sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And 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. And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall no longer be any death. There shall no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. And he said, write, for these things or these words are faithful and true. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes shall inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son. But for the cowardly, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and the 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 one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me saying, come here, I shall now show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God, her brilliance was like a very costly stone as a stone of crystal clear jasper. It had a great and high wall, 12 gates, and at the gate, 12 angels, and names were written on them, which are those of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its walls. 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, 1,500 miles its length, and width and height are equal. And he measured this wall 72 yards according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. And the material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold like clear glass. And the foundation stones of the city were all adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper, the second sapphire, the first was chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the 5th Sardonis, the 6th Sardius, the 7th is Chrysolite, and the 8th Beryl, and the 9th Topaz, and the 10th Chrysoprase, and the 11th Jason, and the 12th Amethyst. And the 12 gates are 12 pearls. Each one of the gates was a single pearl. The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need for the sun or the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nation shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. And in the daytime, for there shall be no night there, its gates shall never be closed. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, and 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. And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as a crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And in the middle of its street, on either side of the river, was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations. And there shall no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bondservants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall no longer be any night, and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them. and they shall reign forever and ever. May the Lord bless His Word. In verses one through eight of this first chapter, chapter 21, we have what is basically a general description of what is known as the new heaven and earth, or a description, most people would just say heaven, but it's really the new heaven and earth, it is eternity. In the rest of this section, John will then give an incredible level of description of what we will call, in this sermon, the capital city of eternity. That's not my word, that's a phrase that others have come up with and I think it's a good one. That what you have being described after verse eight is nothing less than the capital city of the new heavens and earth. Now I want you, if you could, to somehow listen to me and yet also reflect upon what we just read. Just a few moments ago, because for the last several months, my job has been frankly rather miserable. I'm not whining, it's just not been fun to preach every single week here. For every single week that I have done this, I seem to be doing nothing but telling you about the wrath of God. You have heard more about the wrath of God in the last several months than you've heard perhaps in the last few years. This has been a time of misery, a time of God's wrath upon people. We have seen the hatred of Satan. We have read time and time and time again of death and destruction and persecution. But it's done. It's just done. The battle of Armageddon is gone. Jesus' second coming, it's done. His earthly rule, it's finished. The final battle is gone. The final judgment is over. And most importantly, the enemies that I constantly mention in this church, that you and I cannot defeat of sin and death and Satan, they're gone. They've been judged and they've been cast away. And all we have now are the words of our Lord in verse one, or actually verse three, saying, behold, I am making all things new. And so what my hope is is that for some of you, especially who might be very weary, that you would find much strength and much rest today as we hear these words. Now in verses one through eight, I want to make three points about what I'm calling the new heavens and earth, or we'll just call it the universe in this section. three specific things that come out of this passage that you should take note of. In verses one and two, you see what we have is a restored universe, where God makes all things new. John is given this wonderful vision right at the start, a vision of what is to come, a vision of a heaven and earth that's described as new. And when we see the word new there, you should know that the word used there is not just improved or updated, but it's new, it's different, it's something that did not exist before. And so that he takes the heavens and earth that you and I know, and he recreates it in something that is completely new. Something that our eyes and our minds can't really grasp. And so you have to become comfortable with that as you think about heaven, because there's similarities and yet there's not similarities, because it truly is new. Right now all of this for you, and I is by faith. We believe it This is part of being a Christian that we believe God's Word We don't sit there and try to figure a way around God's Word and so we walked by faith Believing that God will make all things new but for John in this vision. It's now a reality for him it becomes sight and he writes these words and Now many will see in verses one through eight, and it's a good thing that they see, that this is the final work of what we call the second Adam. For those of you who don't really know what I'm talking about, just understand that the Bible describes that in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth, and in that he placed in a garden the first man who is Adam and Eve, who he created as well. But Adam did not remain faithful. Adam, in fact, willfully disobeyed God. And in that, the world became broken. Sin and death entered the world is the way the Bible would say it. But what you would need to understand is when you wonder why babies die and why friends get killed, and why cancer grows in people that you love, and why your life does not work out the way that you think it should work out, or you hope it works out, and you wonder, why is it always broken? Why is there so much misery? It's because of Adam. Because in his sin, he brought sin and death into the world, and he, being the first man, was also our representative, and he brought this on all of us, and we all become guilty of it. And that's why nothing ever works. That's why everything fails. And every time you think you've got the new trick that will finally be the answer, it becomes dust in your hands and it falls out and you're left looking. And eventually you just run out of time, right? You work, and you work, and you work, and you work, hoping that you'll fix things, and it'll be different, and I won't be like my mom and dad, and this will be different, and on and on it goes, and generation after generation of humanity have believed that lie, and they all end up in the same place, old, and realizing that ultimately everything fails. Well the second Adam, the Bible in Romans 5 says is Jesus Christ himself. That he comes as the new representative of this world. And that in him he restores all things. He undoes, if you will, the things that Adam did. The first Adam took us out of paradise and the second restores us to it here in chapter 21. But it's much more than the restoration of what was in the beginning. It's better. It's much, much more. This is really the culmination of the promises of God in the Bible. If we had the time, which we don't, we could go all the way back to Genesis, and we could recount time and time and time throughout the Old Testament, and then into the New, of the promise that God was going to set all things right. that He would make all things new, that He would resolve the issue of sin and death. But it's enough for us to just start on Christmas Day, the coming of Jesus as a baby, where God the Son took on the flesh of man, and He walked among us, and He took our sin upon Him, and He died on the cross. He took the wrath of God and then on the third day he rose from the dead conquering even death itself But the Bible describes more than that he also ascended then back into heaven into the presence of his father With a promise that he would return And we looked at that we looked at that over the last couple of weeks as we've been in the book of Revelation Where he comes again? finally The end of all of this is the recreation of all things and that is what we have before us. Now this is not the first time anyone has heard of this in the Bible. You can go all the way back to Isaiah chapter 65 which is written a thousand plus years from the writing of Revelation and you can hear these words. It is written, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered. Hear that, the former shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. For behold, I create a Jerusalem as a rejoicing and her people a joy. What stands out in that prophecy by Isaiah is that we will not, in the new heavens and earth, ever remember the old. People wonder, will I remember? And the answer is no, you won't. You won't need to. Why would you? What you have is so new and so better and so right and you are so properly fit because no longer do you have sin even remaining in you that the old things have passed away. You will never look back in heaven and say, remember the good old days? Because you will realize none of them were good old days. The best I can give as an example of this is, I'm gonna mess it up a little bit, so if you know the specifics of this story, you know, work with me. But there's a man who was an older man, and he had been in communist, a communist country, I believe Russia. He was able late in his life to escape, and he was brought over to America, and the one who was taking care of him as he was coming into a completely new world, took him to the grocery store and just simply to get supplies. This is the first time he's ever been in a grocery store in America. And when he walked in, he was assaulted in every way with the amount of choices that he had. You know, rows and rows, stuff that you and I don't think about, of just opportunity. And he froze, he didn't know what to do. And his caretaker asked him what was wrong. And he said, what is all of this? She said, this is our groceries. And he says, well, which of this am I allowed to buy? He could not comprehend in his mind. His whole world was a different world. And he couldn't grasp that all of this was available to him. It was all his. He could buy whatever he wanted. And she told him, whatever you want. And he began to weep. In fact, he had to leave. He couldn't handle it. It was too much for him. His world was so small in communists that what he thought was a great day grocery shopping there was an embarrassment when he walked into a place where freedom was. Beloved, if a man living in this broken world cannot even comprehend nor handle entering a grocery store for the first time, what will it be like for you and I in the new heavens and earth? Trust me, you will not look backward. You will only look with joy. Nothing shall be missed. rather it will be joy and it will be delight. And many, as we read in this section in verse eight, they notice that it talks right away about there's no sea in verse one. They're like, what's up with that? I like the ocean. Now remember that the symbolic The symbol of chaos in the bible is that of the sea the constant bashing against the shore And it's roiling around and all of the way that the sea represents just chaos In fact in genesis 1 if you remember before god began to shout out and commands of let there be light and etc He says that the earth was formless and void and all that there was was this roiling sea And so, at the very beginning, all you had was a sea, and it was just this roiling about, and then God commands out of that, the land to rise. Well, now you have the exact opposite in the new heavens and earth. Instead of a roiling sea, the sea is gone, and all that you have is this perfect land. Now you also should keep in mind as I go through this sermon that so much of what we're gonna be going through here in chapter 21 and 22 really go back to Genesis chapters one, two, and three. And so you're gonna see a lot of connections with that because what you have, as I said earlier, is you see the restoration but even greater than a restoration of the time before sin and death entered into this world. Now in verse three, if you'll look at the first part of that to remind yourself, you see the second point that I want to make. Not only do you see a restored universe where it's all new and it's better, but you see a unified universe. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he shall dwell among them. Here we have the tabernacle of God being the front and focus. Now, what is this? It's actually the New Jerusalem in verse two. And we'll get into this more in just a moment. But again, it's actually calling to mind the Garden of Eden. Because in the very beginning, before sin and death, God would speak and walk and meet face to face with Adam and Eve. This was a temple, if you will. In fact, it's got a lot of evidence in the Old Testament that the temple for Israel was built with imagery from the garden to remind them that that is the place where they once met with God before sin. And now in the temple is again where they come and they meet with God. That's the tabernacle. God gave us that or gave Israel that for the place for them to come and to worship. What's more interesting is in the gospel of John we read that Jesus when he came up to onto the earth that he became our Tabernacle that it was with Jesus that we were able to meet and dwell in the presence of God but in the end In the end, God will draw heaven and earth together, and no longer will there be any kind of a division between that reality and ours. Right now, we've talked about the world of demonic presence and angelic beings, and I talk about, we only see half of the reality, right? And there's this other half that we only get glimpses of, but we don't know much about. But in that day, in the new heavens and earth, both of those halves will be brought together in unity, and we will dwell with both in absolute ease. It will just simply be complete. And most importantly, we will be seeing God as he is. Then the final thing in verse eight is we have a pure universe. This goes from the last part of verse three all the way down to verse eight. What we have now is that sin is gone and so he says that there will be no more sorrow. Just think about this. When was the last time you wept? When was the last time you were in pain? When was the last time that you simply in your own privacy of your mind ached? God says that in that day, no more. Notice the incredible closeness of what's going on in verse three. that God shall be among them, and he will wipe away every tear. See, it's not that our tears will just simply go away, but God himself will wipe them away. Just think of the intimacy of that. Think of what you, perhaps as a mother or a father, when your little child comes crying, and you hold them, and then you see that tear, and you just wipe it away, and part of it's just such a word, an act of comfort, and this is the imagery being given to us. That we may enter into eternity with tears, but they will be gone in a moment as our father will care for us. In verse 4, he even tells John, write this down. He is to bluntly state that God will make all things new. And the basis of this is his faithfulness. And that's the point of verse six. It's a statement of sovereignty. He says, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. If you don't know, the Greek alphabet, which this was written in, in Greek, is A and omega, or alpha and omega. So it's the beginning and the end, the A and the Z. And it's just a simple way of picturing that God is absolute, that he is sovereign. That you have all of creation and all of time and all of everything. And then on either side, outside of that, is God. That He is there before anything began and He would be there after all things end. He stands sovereign over all of that. And you are being given an opportunity even right now to either accept or reject that, but that is the statement of what the scripture declares to be true. And so he brackets all of time and creation, he stands outside of it, and therefore he alone is the one who can bring all of this to happen. And so when you say, I don't think this is gonna happen this way, all you are saying is before God, you are saying he is a liar and he is not faithful to his promises. But the Bible says that as our sovereign king that he attends to our needs and that's pictured here where he gives us a cup of cold water or a water of life if you will to those who are thirsty. You compare the water of life with the harlot that we looked at that was the image of those who were the enemies of God and the ultimate enemies in that sense. In chapter 17 and 18, remember that it was pictured as a harlot and she had a wine glass full of her abominations and her idolatries and her immoralities. This is what she gave to the nations to drink. This is what the people of this age drink daily. Now, people have their own poison that they choose to drink, but they're all drinking it. But what does God give in the end? He gives the water of life, and He wipes away our tears. She brings war and death, He brings comfort and life. And so in this new world, we will enter into the fullness of our relationship with God. He shall be, as it says, our father, and we shall be his son. That is an image of unimaginable unity and purity. For the first time, racism will be gone. For the first time, those distinctions that we use to lord it over other people or others lord over us, our level of education, our wealth, our looks, our power, our influence, our race, Whatever it might be all of those are erased and for the first time for all eternity When you look at one another all who are in the new heavens and earth will see each other with a purity of a brother Or a sister he'll be right and they'll be good and it'll be peaceful. No more divisions No more distinctions We'll just simply call him our father and one another brother and sister in the purest of ways and And then notice in verse eight though, that far from this new reality shall dwell all who reject God. They live the lie that they were sovereign. Perhaps you're here and you think that you have your control over your life and that you are the one that will make your decisions. This is the lot of all who believe that they will do their own thing and no one will call them to give an account. They are sovereign, captains of their own soul. But the reality is that the Bible would describe them as cowardly. Why? What's with being a coward? Well, it's the idea that to follow Jesus Christ means you're going to lose your life on this side. You don't get to do your own thing. You now have a new Lord. And He is the one who is the Lord and Master in your life. And that's frightening. And so the call is not one that you love your own life, but rather you are willing to lose your life that you might gain it in Jesus Christ. But for the cowardly, they're like, I'm not doing that. They look at what it means to follow Jesus Christ and they say, no, I don't want that. There's no way I'm doing that. And at the very core of it is that they are afraid somehow they will lose out when in fact they will gain all things. And the end for them is an eternity away from God. He goes on and describes that they walk in unbelief They push back that knowledge of God that he put in the soul of every human being that's ever lived They sought every kind of pleasure that they desired every desire. They treasured their bitterness It's weird how humans will do this that we will we will hide bitterness in our heart and we will pet it like it's our friend as if we have been wronged and we have a right to be bitter and hateful toward one another and They worshiped anything and everything but the true God, and so he says in verse eight, they're gone forevermore. There's only one thing that you have if you reject Jesus Christ. The only thing that you will ever see from that point forward of God, and it's only one thing of God, is his perfect, holy, eternal wrath. And all who are God's shall see them as they truly are, And they won't weep over them, beloved. You will not weep over those in hell. You will say amen. And you will see them for what they are. And then you'll marvel at the grace of God that he saved you. From there, we move into a detailed examination of what I'm calling, again, the capital city. Now, you look at how much we have to go through, and you look at the time, and you're like, we're not getting out of here. We will, because actually, the details are such that we can deal with this rather rapidly. This long portion describes for us what many, including myself, will call the capital city of the new heavens and earth. It's here described as the new Jerusalem in verse nine. Or not nine, ten. It's this new city of God. The Old Testament describes Jerusalem as the city of God, except it was stained with sin. Here is the new city, the new city of God where God dwells. For many of this, or for many who read this book, they make this a symbolic city. that represents all of heaven. Now, I'm not going to get into the controversies of that. We've dealt with too much of that already. I want us to focus on the new heavens and earth, but I do need to make just brief points on this. You could see this as a symbolic city and that's all it is. It represents all of heaven or the new heavens and earth. But the problem and the challenge is that there's so much detail given about this city that if you're going to make it a symbol, then you have to have all of those details become symbols as well. And at some point, you're just guessing. You're making up things. Why is a wall this big? And why is it that wide? And why is it this way and that way? What do all of those things symbolize? And at some point it begins to fall apart. Or you avoid all of that and you just touch lightly on it and never deal with the reality of what's written. Others will see it as symbolic, but in a different way. They'll see that the New Jerusalem is, because it's described as a bride, that it must be the church. Because if you know, or as you should know, the church of God is described as the bride of Jesus Christ. And that's tempting. But again, when you look at the detail, you start to realize, no, there's more going on here. For myself, I simply take it as literal. I see it as the centerpiece of the new heavens and earth, and that is what we have before us. That is the dwelling place of God set in the middle of the new creation. You know, when I would read my Bible, well I still do, but when I read my Bible and in the Old Testament, you come across all of those details about the tabernacle. and you gotta have this kind of skin, and you have to have it this way, and these kinds of rings, and you have to have this, the pomegranates, and all of that kind of stuff, and you're like, what's with all of the detail? And you always wonder about it, but you do walk away with this, that God is concerned about beauty. and something that is majestic. But then you also read in the book of Hebrews that the temple of the Old Testament was founded upon a copy in heaven. It's simply a small copy of what is in heaven. And then you come here and you see this vast city and you realize that God is concerned with his glory and his beauty even in architecture. And so let's look at the New Jerusalem in detail. The city is called the Bride and the Wife of the Lamb in verse nine. So again, that's tempting to immediately say, well, it must be the church. But again, I'm gonna argue that the detail does not lend itself to seeing that it is the church. Rather, what it is is representing the people of God, and this is the centerpiece, or the capital city, where the people of God will come to worship and dwell before God. Notice that it's coming down out of heaven. That's the source of its existence. It's not something that comes into creation in the new heavens and earth, and it's not something that exists right now. It's coming in our realm, but rather it comes down from heaven. It is a gift from God to his children. And verses 11 through 21 then describes its appearance, its structures, its dimensions, and its construction materials. So do we spend a lot of time on that? No, we don't. We don't have to. If we're going to take it as literal, we can just see what he makes the city out of. But what I want you to see is the core reality, that this city literally glows. More than that, it flashes forth with the glory of God. And this is built into this idea of Jasper. It's not Jasper like you and I know. If you're right now Googling Jasper, you're going to see a red stone. And it's opaque. You're not going to see the Jasper of the Bible. The word for Jasper back then basically meant a diamond. And so it was clear, and I don't know if you understand how diamonds work, but the more pure the diamond is, the more clarity that it has, the more that it reflects and refracts light in the most amazing of ways. I remember a woman, well, I was in church in LA, and I just started noticing I was being distracted, because there was this constant bursting out of colors off in the corner of my eye. I'm like, what is going on? And we had a large auditorium and these lights that were supposed to be really fancy, I don't know. But I finally looked over and it was a lady that I knew who had just been engaged and it was her engagement ring and she had this big old rock. And every time she moved her hand to turn the Bible page or whatever she was doing, the lights from overhead would catch it and it would just go poof. And it's like brand new and perfectly clear, and it was gorgeous, but you know what? It was actually distracting. Now imagine an entire city of that. Imagine, and then dwelling in it is the glory of God. It becomes like a lighthouse where every time you see it, it just bursts out with this glory and this light and this beauty. And that's what is being pictured as a city. It's a beacon of joy and life. Notice that the gates represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And notice the foundation stones for the wall. are the 12 apostles. And you see that in verses 12 and 14. What do you have? Well, it's interesting. First of all, he makes a distinction between the church and Israel. So we have these 12 tribes of Israel, and we have the church represented by the apostles of the church. At the same time, they're unified in that they're now one people of God. So the walls of this city serve as an eternal story of the redemption of God as you walk into them You're gonna walk through one of those gates and you can see the names of the apostles You're gonna see the name of that tribe of Israel and you will be reminded of the redemptive Saving work of God as you come into the centerpiece of the new creation Also, I want you to notice how honking big it is. That's that's a fancy word honking. It's huge and It is 12,000 stadia, if you have a translation saying that, which equals 1,500 miles. And it's laid out like a cube. Some think it's a pyramid. likely it's just a cube, that's 1,500 miles square and 1,500 miles high. Now you and I, I can say that, but you have no idea what that means. I have no idea what that means. But I can tell you this, if you were to draw a square that was to scale and you put it on a map of the United States, it would cover over half of the United States. Now remember, it's also going up 1,500 miles. Now I don't want to waste time, but I do want to try to give you a sense of the size of this place. And I'm going to work with seven billion people, and the reason I'm working with seven billion people is somebody else who did all the math for me worked with seven billion people, so if you want to challenge me and say, well, actually, there's over eight billion, I know that, I don't care. We're working with seven billion, okay? You take seven billion people and you line them up shoulder to shoulder, that would be very unpleasant, but if you lined them up shoulder to shoulder, they would fit into a place less than 17 miles square. And you say, okay, still don't know what that means. It's smaller than New York City. In other words, you can take seven billion people, we're always talking about overpopulation, and you can stick them and jam them right into New York City and still have room left over. You say, well, that's not good enough. I'd like to know, what about all humans? Because 1,500 miles squared, that doesn't seem that big. Well, we'll take all of the humans. And they say it's around 100. 101, I just did 100 billion people. What's a billion when you're dealing with that, right? You jam them all together, shoulder to shoulder, so that they all have their space, but nothing more, and they'll fit into 65 square miles. Remember, 1,500 square miles in the new heavens and earth. And all of humanity over all time, 65 square miles. What's that size? Well, that's basically the size of Connecticut. You say, well, let's stack them up. Okay, we'll stack them up. Now they're standing on your head. And now it's even more uncomfortable, but now you do that. What do you have? Well, you have a cube, and on each side, it's less than a mile, and it goes up only 3,500 feet, not even a mile high, and you've got everyone jammed in there. This city is 1,500 square miles and high, you don't even begin to grasp the size of this place. And now remember that it's shining forth and bursting with the glory of God and you get the sense of what it's functioning in this new heavens and earth. Notice in verse 22 that there's no temple. Why? Well, the Old Testament talks about the temple being the place where you come to meet God and resolve your sin and worship him. In Revelation, we saw that there would become a new temple built in the future, but that's even gone. Notice that what happens now is that none of these are necessary. Even the church doesn't function as a temple like it does right now. Rather, God becomes our temple. I want you to note that well. It doesn't say that there is no temple. It's not what he's saying. He's saying there is a temple, but the temple is not a building, it's God himself. So any sense of barrier between us and God is now gone. It's just God and we get to come and enjoy him. In verses 23 to 27 we have this illumination. Now I want you to notice some things because people have a few misunderstandings. It doesn't actually say there that there is no sun or moon. It just simply says there's no need for the sun and moon for light. Why? Because God's glory is far more glorious and brighter, and so the city is literally illumined by the glory of God alone. In fact, notice in verse 25, it points out that there will never be night in the city. It's totally focused on the city, not all of the new heavens and earth. It makes it very possible, in fact I think probable, that there will still be the coming and going of the day and night in the other parts of the world, but not in the city, not in the center place, the capital city of eternity. And so again, it serves as a beacon to guide all who are redeemed. Always there will be that place that's constantly bursting forth in a light that we can't even comprehend today. And that's what is meant by the nations coming. Who are the nations? Well they're just the people of God who dwell outside of the city. We don't all dwell actually in this city. Now there's all kinds of questions that we have with that and I'm not going to answer them because we don't know the answer to them. But the new Jerusalem is the centerpiece of the new creation. And what I think happens, and someday we'll preach on this, I believe that part of the rewards given by God to each person in eternity will involve responsibility, how much responsibility they have, and even oversight in the new world. And it's very possible that part of the rewards given will be some due to their faithfulness. Perhaps they're the martyrs who suffered to death that they are given the right and the freedom to dwell in the city as their place. We don't know. But we do know that those who are outside the city will be coming and going because it will never be closed. And then finally we have again this statement in verse 27 of the purity. Now some of this time, the new heavens and earth. So some people actually say, see, even in heaven there will be unbelievers in sin. But they missed the point. Remember what I said earlier, that this is a picture of the Garden of Eden, but better. And if you remember, when God created the Garden of Eden, he placed Adam and Eve in it, and they were dwelling there, but what came into the garden? It was Satan, right? And he came, and he brought his deceptions and his lies, and he deceived Eve, and then Adam willfully sinned, and they were cast from the garden, and it was gone for them. Well, in eternity, Satan's not able to come in. No evil will come in. Nothing will ever enter into this reality to break it or to destroy it. We will finally, beloved, be at rest. You and I are so used to thinking that something's gonna go wrong. You get the perfect job and you're like, this is so great, but in the back of your mind, you know you know it's gonna break. You get into a relationship and you're all giddy and it's so exciting at first, but you know and I know that if you live any length of time, that something will go wrong in that relationship. But in the new heavens and the new earth, it will never go wrong. And so in verses one through five in the next chapter, you have life in the New Jerusalem. Again, he picks up the image of the Garden of Eden where we had the tree of life. In Genesis 2, 10 and 14, it talks about the river that flowed from the garden and then branched into the four great rivers of what we would call the Middle East now. The tree of life is again from the garden, but it's written here as a single tree, but actually imagery that's then given is it's actually a grove of trees, and they're just lining this gorgeous river of life. If you wanna see the actual imagery prophesied, you can read in Ezekiel. I have the passage right there in chapter 47. But notice how it explicitly says in verse three that the curse that you and I live under is lifted. No longer will it be there The throne of God and lamb will sit in it and his bond servants will serve him And the point of all of this is simply this beloved That God has more than fully restored paradise. He's given us something utterly new and so in this vision It draws to a close for us with this final picture being one of life like we have never tasted. It's a life of full presence with God. Life that's fully filled with worship, with no struggle, no boredom, no strain. The Bible says in verse four that God offers the water of life to anyone who thirsts. And so I guess my question to you is do you thirst? Have you become so weary of this life and how it constantly deceives you and it fails you that you are hungry and thirsty? The Bible says that you need to come to God through his son Jesus Christ. Is your soul dry and parched? Is it broken due to sin? Then come to God and he will resolve that sin in his son. Beloved, if you are in any way, shape, or form building your life and hope in this age, you will lose. Can you not see today that it is all but dust? Can you not see that it's a life wasted, pursuing life and meaning here? I can tell you there's only one answer and one hope, and that is to place your trust in God, who through Jesus Christ dealt with sin and death that haunts you because it dwells in you. You can't get away from it. See that the hope that's found in Jesus Christ, that that's where your hope is, that he was the perfect sacrifice that resolves sin. And if you have questions about that, I would be happy to talk to you. I can even connect you up with somebody else to talk to you. If you want to say, well, I don't understand it, or I think this is a bunch of hooey, but I'd like to hear more. And we would be thrilled to be able to meet with you and talk. But even today, Jesus is calling out through His Word and through His people to come and believe in Him, to follow Him, and to bow before Him as your Lord. And at that point, the promise attached to all of this is earth-shattering. He says in chapter 21 that the one who overcomes, meaning the one who has put his faith in Jesus Christ and therefore he's overcome all of the things that prevents him from true life. He says, he who overcomes shall inherit these things. I will be his God and he will be my son.