1. "The culmination of history is not a human-made tower of Babel using our skill, talents and potential to reach up to God. But the climax and fulfillment of history is God graciously having built the city, the city whose maker and architect is God, brings it down now and gives it to us."

2. "God promises to deliver us from the penalty of our own sins that we have deserved, the power of sin over us, but even from the presence of temptation to do wrong, temptation to wrong fears or wrong doubts."

3. "I can tell you here from God's Word, we have the promise that everything will one day be put right. That sort of homing sense you have for justice is not wrong. You just need to know it will never be fully accomplished in this life."

4. "Today we are divided by various issues, even from other true Christians. But friends, on that day we will know a complete unity in God. The universal church will visibly be one."

5. "Today, we're not much to look at. But on that day, we ourselves will be a glorious reflection of God."

6. "God is not a ticket to something else. You don't pray the prayer to take Christ as your Savior and then throw it away like a stub on the ground and go into the main feature which is your life enhanced by all the God things. Friend, if you believe that, you're not a Christian."

7. "That presence of God that was now mediated is now unmediated. That was then hidden by smoke and dim light is now revealed and shining. That was once limited to a small area will now fill that vast city."

8. "All of your worldly confidences are just doors for anxiety and even for a wrong fear to enter into your life and begin to threaten your very heart's peace."

9. "For us as Christians, we know that in this life we can be confident that our best days are always ahead of us because of the hope that we have of this day coming."

10. "Christ is the pearl of great price for which we would be wise to sell and part with everything else we have, every hope, every dream, if only we might gain Christ."

Observation Questions

1. According to Revelation 21:2-3, what does John see coming down out of heaven, and what does the loud voice from the throne declare about God's relationship with His people?

2. In Revelation 21:4, what specific things does God promise will no longer exist in the new creation, and what reason is given for this change?

3. What characteristics does Revelation 21:8 list as belonging to those who will be excluded from the holy city, and what does it call their fate?

4. According to Revelation 21:22-23, why is there no temple in the city, and what provides light for the city instead of the sun or moon?

5. In Revelation 22:3-5, what does the text say will happen to the curse, what will God's servants do, and what unique privilege will they have regarding God?

6. According to Revelation 21:27, who alone will be permitted to enter the holy city, and what book determines their entrance?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon emphasizes that the New Jerusalem "comes down out of heaven from God" (21:2) rather than being built by human effort. How does this contrast with humanity's natural religious instinct to reach God through our own works, and what does it teach us about the nature of salvation?

2. The city is described as a cube (21:16), which mirrors the shape of the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple. What is the significance of this architectural detail for understanding how God's presence with His people will be different in the new creation compared to the old covenant?

3. Why does John use both the image of a "city" and a "bride beautifully dressed for her husband" (21:2, 9) to describe the same reality? What different aspects of our future relationship with God do these two images communicate?

4. The sermon states that "God is the gospel"—meaning God Himself, not merely His gifts, is the ultimate blessing. How does the absence of a temple (21:22) and the promise that we will "see His face" (22:4) support this central claim?

5. In Revelation 21:7, God promises that overcomers will inherit all these blessings and become His children. Based on the sermon's reference to 1 John 5:4-5, what does it mean to "overcome," and how does this connect to the call throughout Revelation for believers to persevere?

Application Questions

1. The sermon describes how people often use God as a means to fix relationships, avoid danger, or improve their circumstances rather than treasuring God Himself as the ultimate prize. In what specific area of your life are you most tempted to value God's blessings more than God Himself, and what would it look like to reorient your desires this week?

2. Revelation 21:4 promises that God will wipe away every tear and end all death, mourning, crying, and pain. How should this certain future hope change the way you respond to a current sorrow, disappointment, or injustice you are facing—without minimizing the real pain you feel now?

3. The sermon noted that many people who work for justice become discouraged when they don't see results in this life. If you are involved in work that seeks to right wrongs (in government, business, family, or neighborhood), how can the promise that God will one day "make everything new" (21:5) sustain your efforts and protect you from burnout or cynicism?

4. The gates of the city face every direction (21:13), symbolizing that people from every nation and background are welcome through Christ. Is there a person or group of people you tend to assume would not be interested in the gospel or welcome in your church community? What concrete step could you take to extend an invitation to them?

5. The sermon challenged listeners to consider what they might be holding onto instead of fully trusting Christ as Savior and Lord. What specific hope, security, or identity apart from Christ are you most reluctant to surrender, and how might releasing it actually lead to greater freedom and joy?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 3:1-24 — This passage records the original curse that resulted from Adam and Eve's disobedience, which Revelation 22:3 declares will finally be removed in the new creation.

2. Isaiah 60:1-22 — The sermon directly quotes this prophecy about God being His people's everlasting light, which finds its ultimate fulfillment in the New Jerusalem.

3. Ezekiel 47:1-12 — This vision of the river flowing from the temple and the trees whose leaves bring healing provides the Old Testament background for Revelation 22:1-2.

4. John 14:1-6 — Jesus promises to prepare a place for His disciples and declares Himself the only way to the Father, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on Christ as the sole gate into the heavenly city.

5. 1 John 5:1-5 — The sermon uses this passage to define what it means to "overcome the world," explaining that faith in Jesus as the Son of God is the victory that overcomes.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: The World's Confused Ideas About the Afterlife

II. What Will God Give Us?

III. What Will Be God's Best Gift to Us?

IV. How Can I Come to Be With God Forever?

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Detailed Sermon Outline

One of the more amazing lunches I've ever had was just a few blocks away from here on Pennsylvania Avenue. I had just come as the pastor of this church and I was trying to meet up with other local ministers in the area just to get to know them. I met up with the Roman Catholic priest, the Episcopalian minister, Methodist, Presbyterian, anything I could find, I met up with. Well, I was at one of those lunches and this minister, like several at the time, had been at his church here on the Hill for a couple of decades. And as we talked, I asked him the question at one point, so what do you think will happen when you die?

And I'll never forget his response.

I don't know. You're right, I suppose.

Well, I was stunned.

I stammered, Do you think Jesus said anything about this? I mean, after all, he was a Christian minister.

Again, he responded with his confident agnosticism, I don't know, but I don't think it would matter if he had.

The clothes he wore were sometimes associated with some historically Christian churches. His answer reflected the mindset of the unbelieving world. Rotting is not a good summary of anything that has ever been presented as the Christian's ultimate hope.

But it does take its place along with countless other confident assertions I've heard made about the next life, many of the most colorful, of course, being made at funerals. How many times I have heard someone refer to heaven as the great living room in the sky where our departed is now up with family members swapping old stories.

To shield us from the way death tears at our souls, we imagine sweet and sentimental scenes. So Brooke Shields tells us that Michael Jackson is now undoubtedly perched on a crescent moon.

Countless eulogies and obituaries suggest that the deceased are up there doing their thing. The reporters are up there reporting. The race car drivers are up there racing. The chefs are up there cooking. I don't know what the morticians are up there doing in such a view.

One wit suggested that a lawyer's view of heaven was that at the resurrection every man would try to reclaim his own property.

Religions too have their answers. Hinduism has various scenarios usually involving reincarnation and all becoming one. Mormonism quite differently suggests that we, at least some of the us's, we's, get to have our own universe. Islam teaches that there is a paradise to be gained, a land of unending earthly delights.

And Buddhism teaches us that the end of everything is nirvana, blissful nothingness, where desire ends, not by being satisfied, but by being eliminated.

What will be the end of the story? What is the end of history according to the Bible? What is God doing? What end will He achieve?

Well, all these questions are resolved in what the Bible teaches about the final state of a world restored to God with His purposes consummated. And that is what our passage is about this morning. We are in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And we're just about at the end of it. We're in chapter 21 this morning.

You should find it very near the back of whatever copy of the Bible you're looking at. Let me invite you to turn to it now. You will be helped unusually, I think, in this sermon by having the text open in front of you. That's why we provide Bibles for free all over the auditorium here. All right?

So just take a Bible if you're not familiar with it. Turn it with its cover down and open the back cover. Turn in a couple of pages and you will be right there. Revelation, last book in the Bible, chapter 21. The chapter numbers are the larger numbers, 21.

When I refer to a certain verse, that will be the smaller numbers after that chapter number. As you turn there, let me just remind you that John was a disciple of Jesus. He was appointed one of Jesus' apostles. He was a pastor of a church in Ephesus, the writer of the Gospel, and he had now been exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, presumably for not worshiping the Roman emperor. There he had these visions that we've been studying.

Vision of God in His throne room ruling history for His own purposes. And now we come to the culmination, Revelation 21, beginning with verse 1.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, For the old order of things has passed away.

He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. He said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all kinds of liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

This is the second death. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' and he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had great high wall with twelve gates and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia.

That's like 15,000 miles in length, and as wide and high as it is long. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick by man's measurement which the angel was using. The wall was made of Jasper in the city of pure gold as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was Jasper, the second Sapphire, the third Chalcedony, the fourth Emerald, the fifth Sardonyx, the sixth Carnelian, the seventh Chrysolyte, the eighth Beryl, the ninth Topaz, the tenth Chrysoprase, the eleventh Jacinth, and the twelfth Amethyst.

The 12 gates were 12 pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, For the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it, Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful.

But only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

We will consider three questions to help us meditate through our passage. And I pray that as we do, God will grow your desire for Him.

First question, number one, what will God give us? What will God give us?

Answer: It is clear from this passage that God will give us so many gifts that even in our long period of time allotted for a sermon, I can only barely begin to point out to you what lies ahead for you.

If you are a Christian. Let me just mention, draw your attention to eight of them. Number one, notice what He gives us here in salvation.

We begin this chapter by being introduced to the new creation and then in verse 2, John reports to us of His initial sight of the new Jerusalem. Notice the fundamentally gracious nature of this and all His gifts. Look again at that second verse in our passage, chapter 21, verse 2. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Friends, all that we have now, all that we're about to think about that we will ever have, God gives us.

Notice here that the culmination of history is not A human-made tower of Babel using our skill, talents and potential to reach up to God. But the climax and fulfillment of history is God graciously having built the city, the city whose maker and architect is God, brings it down now and gives it to us.

Brothers and sisters, in the brief compass of these verses we see summarized our salvation. Given to us by God. Look again at the end of verse 27 about who will be able to enter the city. It says, Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. How does a name get written there?

We can't do it ourselves. God alone can set our name down on those heavenly pages. Notice who owns this Book of Life. It is the Lamb. He has created it by His sacrifice, and He has written the names in His own blood.

Only those so chosen by God, only those so redeemed by Christ have their names in that book. Our salvation is all by God's gift. All of it from first to last is by His grace. In John's description of the Holy City, you can't help but notice that the Tree of Life is back. The tree of life from the very first chapters of the Bible that's been conspicuous by its absence from the story of humanity is now back.

And by its leaves we read, People from every tribe and language and people and nation have been healed. That means they have been saved. They have been purchased and converted. They have been redeemed through the work of Christ on the cross, our tree of life. Our vision of the end that we find here is one which we find filled by those who have been saved by Christ.

A second gift we can see in this city that bustles with life. It's populated only with those who have been delivered. See God's deliverance. We Christians are those who by God's grace have been delivered from the penalty of sin, God's wrath that we deserve. Even now we're being delivered from the power of sin as God's Holy The Holy Spirit continues to instruct us and change us.

But in this passage we see the hope that a day is coming when we will even be delivered from the very presence of sin. God will exercise His justice as we saw in chapter 20 last week. He will declare His own holiness and He will deliver His people from all unholiness. That's what's going on there in verse 8. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Of this is the second death. And again down in verse 27, Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful. God promises to deliver us from the penalty of our own sins that we have deserved, the power of sin over us, but even from the presence of temptation to do wrong, temptation to wrong fears or wrong doubts.

To those things which God declares unclean and abominable, which He detests. Friend, what a joyful promise this is. Are you tempted by lying?

Look at your job. Look at what the requirements of your job are. Are you not tempted to deceive? Does it not ever bother you in your soul? Look here, you see that God promises deliverance.

To your own hurt and harm, have you been deceived?

Oh, child of God, we look forward to a day, we look forward to a hope here of being forever delivered from all such as would ever do that to you. The sanctity of this city will be a reflection of God's own sanctity. It will be a home for truth. In this city we're delivered from all sorrow. Look at verse 4.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. God will deliver us from all sorrows.

Our only memories of our current sorrows will be those which would increase our happiness then.

Could the wiping away of our tears by God be more pleasurable than the tears were painful?

God here reminds John's readers of that passage that we studied some time ago back in chapter 7 verse 15. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. So many of you are here to work for justice. Some of you are doing it in government. Some of you are doing it in the military. Some of you are doing it in NGOs.

Some of you are doing it in business. You are doing it in difficult home situations. Some of you are laboring for no gain for yourself in your neighborhoods. Friends, I can tell you here from God's Word, we have the promise that everything will one day be put right.

That sort of homing sense you have for justice is not wrong. You just need to know it will never be fully accomplished in this life. Well, does that mean we shouldn't do anything about it now? No, it doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that at all.

Everything you do for good and right is to God's honor and glory and praise. But you need to know this so that you will not be discouraged because you don't attain your goal of seeing those things happen in this life. And after a week or a month or a year or ten years get discouraged and stop. Now I think Karl Marx was exactly wrong on this one. He thought a vital belief in the afterlife like this became the opiate of the people and caused their activity to seep away.

Friends, I think we fire our hopes. And so we have energy to continue on being certain of the fact that God will Himself accomplish all of this to His glory and praise. So complete is God's deliverance of us His people, promised here in this passage, that we see that even any threat of anything further that's bad, that threat, that danger is gone. We've been delivered even from danger. That's why there's the stuff about the city walls.

Did you think, why am I being given these architectural details? Look at verse 12 again. It had a great high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. And then look at how thick they are in verse 17.

He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits. That's 72 yards thick by man's measurement, which the angel was using. What's the point of this detail? It is to show us that God delivers us from danger completely.

And if that weren't enough to calm your fears, look, He's even got angels stationed at the gates. God is telling His people that no attack against them ever will succeed.

Number three, God will save us, number one. God will deliver us, number two. He will also give us the long-desired unity with the rest of His people.

Today we are divided by various issues, even from other true Christians.

We are divided sometimes because I think people are being too harsh, like in the stuff I mentioned last week, about separating over particular millennial views. We are now on the blogsphere being divided even by those who think that I'm being too harsh in saying that they're being too harsh in causing people to divide over particular millennial views.

As Christians we have an unending ability to divide. That is this day. But friends, on that day we will know a complete unity in God. In this world the divisions and separations between Christians confuse and sadden us. It will not be so there.

There our unity will be complete. The universal church will visibly Be one. That's the significance of verses 12 to 14 there. And the uses of the number 12 again and again is to show the completeness. Not one is left out.

The universality of God's people all will be there together as one city, just like we saw back in chapter 7, from all the tribes and people and nations and races. All the tribes of old will gather together along with all the apostles from the new. God's people before and after Christ will dwell together in this immense city. And you notice how immense it is there in verse 16. Its hugeness shows how important it is, how vast its scope is, which suggests how gigantic the number of the redeemed will be.

Sometimes churches that are very, very concerned about theology, churches say like, maybe this one, think that the number of the redeemed will be 16, maybe 17.

Friends, I take great hope here in seeing the number of the redeemed will be countless multitudes of people who have known the grace of God in Christ. Some have wondered about the mention of the earthly splendors there in verses 24 and 26. Well, we know the only ones who come into this city are those who have their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. It's only Christians. Those earthly splendors, I think, are best understood to be the worship the submission of these kings and the peoples they represent, from the various peoples of the world, all coming before God from all around the world to give Him praise and glory and honor.

Number four. And two, did you notice the gift of work that God has for us? Today some of us are unemployed and all of our jobs will end. But then He promises us to give us everlasting fellowship with Him in our work. Who is reigning in the future that we're told here?

Well, God, of course. It's His world. His throne is mentioned specifically repeatedly. We're even told in 22:3 that His servants will serve Him.

And yet, and yet we learn in verse 5 that we, Christians, will reign forever and ever. We will do this with Him forever in this kingdom where the servants reign even as the reigning kings serve God. Number five.

We also find here that He promises us light. Did you notice that promise here of the Lord being our light? Look again at chapter 21 verse 23. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. And then down in verse 25, On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.

And then again in chapter 22 verse 5, There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. Night is ended. It's over. So the prophecy found in Isaiah 60 will be fulfilled.

The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you. For the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end. Friend, I wish I had time to pull out all the things in the Old Testament that are behind these blessings God gives us, but I don't.

But you can study your own Bibles. You can use concordances and find the richness of the summary of biblical truths we're finding here in this final vision. This new day is coming when the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord and those who love the light and live by the truth of God. This new heavens and new earth is filled with pervasive of light and splendor of God Himself. That's five.

Is there still more?

God promises to give us not only salvation and deliverance and unity and work and light, but also glory. Glory, you say. That's proper for God alone. We're a well-trained congregation. We're God-centered.

Why would you get up in the pulpit on the Lord's Day morning and speak of glory going to us? Well, friends, it's glory here because God will cause us to reflect Him.

Today, we're not much to look at. Here we are at our Sunday best, right? And God can even see our character. He knows what we think and hope, what we say. He knows all those things nobody who can just see your clothes knows.

But on that day, we ourselves will be a glorious reflection of God. Verse 11, it shone with the glory of God and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. Notice this description of a rare, costly, priceless jewel and its radiance. He refers here to the city's brilliance as if it sparkled in the light and dazzled John's eyes.

And that first phrase there, it shone with the glory of God. That's one of my favorite phrases to meditate on this week, as I've been thinking about this passage especially. It shone with the glory of God. So the heavenly splendor that we saw back in God's heavenly throne room in chapters 4 and 5 is now filling the new city. In fact, the whole creation And of course, this is not just a description of the heaven that we will live in.

Sometimes people read this wrongly, I think, when they think this. No, this is a description, friends, of us. Remember when He brought John to show him the bride of the Lamb? That's us, friends. We are being described here.

This is a description of the grandeur on that day that we will have merely as a reflection of God's own greater grandeur.

Why do you think there's all this specific description of the precious stones and the foundations, the gates, the streets there in verses 18 to 21? It's not just so preachers can come up with weird messages. You know, friends, it's because the city's riches and beauty and treasure reflect God's own splendor, God's own glory. Number seven, we also see that God promises us satisfaction.

Today we get thirsty, not only in our bodies but in our souls. But on that day, we will be satisfied. We will be satisfied fully and completely. Look at chapter 21 verse 6. God speaks to John directly here.

He said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. And do you think we will still be in want, in thirst, in need, desiring something else when we have drunk that drink? God has promises here in His Word for the thirsty.

Oh, friend, do you thirst this morning? I don't mean just for that drink of water that you can get in a few minutes. No, I mean for that thing that dominates your life that you cannot get. Oh, friends, pray God help you to thirst for that far greater thing. That here by faith in Christ you are promised you can have and have eternally.

And as of all this were not enough, number eight, we keep reading there in chapter 21 and verse 7, He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God.

And He will be my Son. Today some who are gathered here, some of us don't know who our father was. Others of us know our dads, but maybe they're now gone, maybe long gone, maybe through death, maybe because they deserted us. Maybe we knew them and we're sorry we knew them.

Others of us have had good fathers, but we know well even the best aren't perfect.

But friend, on that day, on that day, we see here in verse 7, God says, I will be His God and He will be my son.

God promises us adoption, sonship.

You might expect God to promise to be our Father because He uses the word Son. It would be parallel to it. But you understand that He says God. And He does this because earthly fathers are intended to be pointers to God.

All of our roles of authority and leadership and service are intended to reflect to others around us and especially to those under our authority great truths about God. So when we say that God Himself will relate to us, take us as His sons, then we find that our relating to Him as God will completely subsume and encompass and surpass our relating to Him as Father.

Salvation, deliverance, unity, work, light, glory, satisfaction, even sonship. Friends, we could keep going. I suggest continuing is better than whatever you had planned for your afternoon. I don't mean me continuing. I mean you continuing when you get home.

Continue to look at this and see what we have promised. All of this is not only beginning in this life, but culminating completely and perfectly on that great day to come. These are gifts of God to persevering believers. Gifts of God that persevering believers can look forward to. And so be helped to persevere through disease and sickness and depression and persecution and unemployment and even death.

At my funeral, speaking of death, I trust some of you will come.

I couldn't say that so much when I first got here, but now by God's grace I have lived long enough that most of you are now younger than me, and therefore I have some hope that you will be there. I simply want to make publicly known that I want you to sing the hymn the Sands of Time are Sinking. We sang it earlier today. The tune is okay. It's actually slightly growing on me, though I've been critical of it for years.

But friends, the reason is the words. I would particularly like you to sing it because of the last stanza: the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of Grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand, the Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land.

For all of those wonderful gifts that we have to look forward to, there is something more, something infinitely more. Which brings me to question number two. Question number one is what will God give us? Question number two is what will be God's best gift to us? And as great as the eight are that I have singled out, and as I say, there are still others, I think it's clear that God's supreme gift to us will be Himself.

And before I go on with this point, I just want to speak a moment to any Muslims who may be here, or if you have friends who are Muslims, just reflect with you for a moment. I have been again and again over the years in conversation with Muslim friends some of those Muslims I've just met, but sometimes with Muslim friends, people I've known for years, and have noted that again and again Christianity is disagreed with, and I've heard Muslim apologists in public lectures even mock Christianity, for precisely this point, this idea of a relationship with God.

Friends, to me it seems absolutely demonic, that the very thing that is at the heart of the Christian faith should be that which is most maligned by others. Let me just ask you, if you are a Muslim, try especially hard to understand what we Christians mean by speaking about having a relationship with God, because this is the very heart and core and center of Christianity. Look again at just the beginning in chapter 22 verse 3. If you know your Bible, these are startling words.

Revelation 22:3 no longer will there be any curse.

Now if you're not a Christian or if you're new to looking around the Bible, you may well be wondering, What's the big deal about this? What curse is he referring to? He's referring to the ancient curse that our first parents called down upon themselves by their disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden. It's recorded back in Genesis, chapter 3. We won't turn there now, but I'll give you the reference in case you want to look it up and read about it later.

I think it would be good to take a moment just to explain. Christianity is perhaps the most corporate of religions. And this is especially challenging for modern Americans to grasp. The world's natural religion reflected in so many religions around the world is that I as an individual will live a sufficiently good life so that when I die, God will fairly naturally let me into whatever heavenly afterlife there may be. That is what most people on this planet believe.

I dare to say that's probably what most people you talk to this week believe. It doesn't matter if they call themselves Muslim, atheist, Christian. That's what they believe. I mean, you know, such a mindset would say, I need to make sure that I do no heinous evil. But so long as I keep my spiritual nose sufficiently clean, there shouldn't be a problem.

Heinous evil, by the way, is normally defined as something worse than whatever I've done.

This, as I say, I think is what you find in much vague theism, in religious Confucianism, in Sikhism, in Hinduism, in Buddhism, and Islam among countless millions who call themselves Christians but are ignorant of their Bibles. This is, as I say, the natural religion of humanity. We think there is a God, we have a conscience, we think this God has standards, but we think this God is spare-minded in His standards and that those standards are always just a little bit lower than whatever we have done wrong. That is human nature. That's human religion.

But that is not the religion of the Bible. It's not what Jesus taught John and the other disciples. It's not the Christian message. The Christian message is far more corporate. The Bible teaches us that God's curse on Adam and Eve is a curse on us all.

That we are each one a part of one of two companies. Either the company of the rebels in Adam or the company of the redeemed in Christ, whom Paul calls in Romans the second Adam. Adam and Christ stood uniquely in special positions for others. They represented others. Adam has represented all of those who are born of the flesh, that is all those alive.

Christ has represented all those who are born of the Spirit. That is all those who have repented of their sins and trusted in Christ's substitutionary death on the cross. Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, please try to understand this. This is the most important thing you will learn in your sojourn among us this morning. That God has in love Himself become a man, Jesus of Nazareth.

That He lived a perfect life and He died on the cross. As a substitute, that is in the place of bearing God's wrath for any one of us who would ever turn from our sins and trust in Christ. And God raised Him from the dead to sign publicly the truth of all these claims Christ made about His life and death. And He was brought up to heaven and there is at the right hand of the Father, that is with God's full authority. And we are now called as Christians to understand this and to believe this so that God's wrath will be borne not by us on that last day, but on another Jesus Christ in our stead.

This is how we have forgiveness for our sins. This is how we have a restored relationship with God. Christianity is all about dealing with this curse and its effects. And what we find here in Revelation 22:3 is that the end of the curse is announced. That's why all these previously absent or only partially present blessings flood into this new world.

And the supreme blessing is that the dwelling of God will finally be with men. Look there in chapter 21, verse 3. The dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. Here in this verse, God promises His presence.

This dwelling of God with His people is what was foreshadowed in the tabernacle, in the wilderness, and in the temple in Jerusalem. It's what came as a down payment in Christ and in the Holy Spirit being poured out on the church. But God's people are in those coming days in the fullest sense holy. That is, we will be with Him. We will again be His people.

So God's exclusion of us from the garden, from His presence, back in Genesis 3 is here undone. Done. And that is the biggest news in our passage today. More than that, it is the biggest news from this series on the book of Revelation. More than that, it is the biggest news from the whole Bible.

That curse that God has pronounced against you and me because of what we have done is lifted. For all of those who will trust in Christ who bore it for us. John Piper uses the phrase, God is the gospel.

Meaning by this that God is not a ticket to something else. You don't pray the prayer to take Christ as your Savior and then throw it away like a stub on the ground and go into the main feature which is your life enhanced by all the God things. Friend, if you believe that, you're not a Christian. A Christian, someone who's forgiven for their sins by God, is someone who's understood they've sinned against God and that God has acted in Christ for their salvation and they have now repented of their sins and trusted in Christ. God is the point.

He's not a means to our ends. Christian brothers and sisters, have you been training your hearts on some smaller hopes, using God to help you get over this disease or avoid this danger or fix this relationship? That's not what He's for. He's for Himself. Now when you take Him for Himself, there will be implications back and all these other things, never perfectly in this life.

This is a fallen world. This day is now. Then there is a day to come.

Our hopes must be trained on Him.

Identify if there are certain areas that you care more about God's blessings than you do about God Himself, and pray that God change your heart. Some people, I think, have offered everything they imagine paradise to be on the one side, and Christ on the other would, in a heartbeat, take the Christless paradise.

Friends, that's not what Christianity is about. That's not the Bible's representation of the New Jerusalem at all. Our eternal future is to be, by God's grace, through Christ reintroduced into the presence of God, and there and then to enjoy that love forever without interruption. His love fully manifested, our hearts perfectly satisfied. Thus all these rich images in this passage tell us by various symbols that the curse has ended.

We have these words we've been considering here in verses 22 and 23 about John not seeing a temple in the city, which might be surprising to you. Very religious place, you would think, heaven.

Until you realize that you no longer need a lowly assembly because the King has now made His very palace with us.

We read in verse 22, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. They're together. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are one. Do you see that? And then again, John comments on how this city needs the shining of neither sun nor moon because, he says in verse 23, the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp.

Once again, God dwells with those made in His image. This is also strikingly represented in chapter 21 in verses 15 and 16.

Look at those verses. Mark, did you get the wrong verse numbers? No, I did not. Okay, how is God's glory represented in verses 15 and 16?

Because you see, in the measurements of the city, it's not just a square, it's a cube.

Okay, what's so special about a cube? What else is shaped like a cube in Scripture?

The Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple. The place of God's special presence.

God had the Holy of Holies built like that in order to have a symbol for us to be able to understand this future of His fuller presence. We find then that this city is communicating to John and to his initial Jewish Christian readers even by its very shape. You understand John's vision here. That presence of God which was mediated and hidden by smoke in a room with dim light limited only to a small area for one ethnic group veiled, nearly empty, accessed only once a year, that only by a high priest, that presence of God symbolized by the Holy of Holies, that presence of God that was now mediated is now unmediated. That was then hidden by smoke and dim light is now revealed and shining.

That was once limited to a small area will now fill that vast city that was accessed only once a year will now be with men and women every day and there will be no more nights. And that presence that was once only for the high priest occasionally will now be for all the children of God always. The gates to the city will never close.

Do you see what God is saying about the fullness of our relationship with Him that He's calling us into?

The glory of God is in that city. All these rich images are teaching us that we are being adopted fully into His family. Brothers and sisters, the great blessing of the New Jerusalem is the presence of God. And we see something of the nature, the thickness, the intimacy of God's presence with His people in the marriage imagery in our passage. We read in verse 2, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

What an image! A bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Friends, how many times in this very place, down this very aisle, have we seen a bride come beautifully dressed for her husband? We see the anxious and expectant groom standing there, nervous and excited, just watching for the appearance of his bride.

And have you noticed the pleasure that they take when she appears at the mere sight of each other?

Friends, that's just a taste. That most special of moments in life is just A taste, a shadow of what God has for us. Here we as God's people are described on that day as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. This is a picture of desire and of satisfaction.

Then down in verse 9 we read, One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

God's people are called the wife of the Lamb. This marriage imagery tells us a lot about the nature of the relationship that we can look forward to with God in this city, a relationship of intimacy and commitment, a publicly accountable relationship of faithfulness and love and pleasure and satisfaction. Let's also appreciate the richness of the way God has described for us something of the future that we have to look forward to with Him. We're given these various images of God's people. It's really interesting when you think about it.

We're given this image of God's people as a city and God's people as a wife. So we have the urban image and the marriage image. We've also got the religious image of the Holy of Holies. All these images come cascading down on us to show us something of the richness of this this relationship with God that we're called to experience with Him forever. They're crashing together to convey to us something of what we have to look forward to.

The closest thing I see in this passage to describing the actual experience of the curse of our exclusion from God's presence being ended is there in chapter 22 and verse 4.

This is where we see the climax in the immediacy of sight. We will one day not sit and hear a sermon about God. We will see Him. They will see His face. That which Adam and Eve were denied, which Moses could not see, which Isaiah saw only in a vision and dimly, on that day we will see fully.

Friend, does this thought move you?

The thought of finally seeing the God you profess to love but have never seen?

Augustine entreated his readers not to be satisfied merely with God's gifts. Suppose, brethren, a man should make a ring for his betrothed, and she should love the ring more wholeheartedly than the betrothed who made it for her. Certainly let her love his gifts, but if she should say, the ring is enough, I do not want to see his face again, what would we say of her? The pledge is given her by the betrothed, just that in his pledge he himself may be loved. God then has given you all these things.

Love him who made them.

Infinite satisfaction will be found in gazing on God and being with Him. Brothers and sisters, many times people of this world face their days with calmness and even some confidence because of the assurance they feel about their own abilities, their own health, their own relationships, their own mind.

But what little confidences those are to face this world with.

Have you been continuing to know some weak peace through such misplaced confidences? My Christian friend, throw those wrong confidences aside. Get rid of them as the beggarly things they really are. Study God's Word here and believe it and so come to a pervasive Christian hope that all your your life not based upon your strength, but based upon God's strength. Not based upon your plans, but based upon God's plans.

God is faithful to fulfill all of His promises. He will not let one fail. You realize that all of your worldly confidences are just doors for anxiety and even for a wrong fear to enter into your life. And begin to threaten your very heart's peace? No, no.

Brothers and sisters, trust in this God. Put your confidence in Him and His promises alone. He is our hope. Apart from Him, we have no hope. He is the greatest gift that we are to get on that day.

Now, I have to say that in studying and meditating on this passage and preparing this sermon, it would be my desire to leave this sermon right there. Just describing God and His gifts to us, especially His amazing gift of Himself, and just kind of reverently kind of back away in awe and leave it with you.

But this book was written for a purpose.

This book was written for you and me to get to that city, to encourage us in the way and give us strength. So I pose a final question, question number three.

How can I come to be with God forever? How can I come to be with God forever?

God made us all. We have, as we've considered, all sinned against this God and so been cursed along with this world. God the Son took on flesh in Jesus Christ and died and rose to bear and exhaust God's right, correct, just wrath against us for our sins. He died on the cross to redeem us and now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Him now. In this passage here in Revelation 21 and 22, we see a state better than we could ever have conceived of, better than any we now enjoy.

We've been considering here the state of being glorified, the state that God will call us to on that day in Christ. Considering the wonders of God's love for us in Christ, not only what He's given us today, but what He has for us on that day, considering this should purify our hopes and grow our assurance of His love and our resolve to follow Him, through whatever crosses He may call us to bear. Such consideration of God's wonderful promises should provoke our desires for Him. John Newton put it this way: In praising God for this great city to come, glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God. He whose word cannot be broken formed thee for His own abode.

On the rock of ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose? With salvation's walls surrounded, Thou mayst smile at all thy foes. See the streams of living waters springing from eternal love, well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove. Who can faint while such a river ever does their thirst assuage? Grace which like the Lord the giver never fails from age to age.

Oh friends, on that day we will neither faint for want nor fear for danger ever again. Friends, the question you need to ask is, is that your hope this morning? It is for us as Christians. For us as Christians, we know that in this life we can be confident that our best days are always ahead of us because of the hope that we have of this day coming. But what if that's not the case for you this morning?

What if you sat here and listened for an hour about the Christian's hope of heaven and you feel you have no part of it?

Friend, don't be like those described here in verse 8.

Cowardly, unbelieving, vile, murderous, sexually immoral, practicing magic arts, idolaters, liars, God is clear here that such people will never enter the heavenly city.

But haven't we all been rebels against God? How can any of us then enter that city? Which of us will be able to do that? Only, He says in verse 27, those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Friend, is your name written there? Do you notice what he says here in verse 21, the gates were made of? Each gate was made of one single pearl. The way into the city is only through the pearl. Friends, Christ is the pearl of great price for which we would be wise to sell and part with everything else we have, every hope, every dream, if only we might gain Christ.

Frendor, what are you deciding to hold onto instead of taking Christ as your Savior? Jesus taught His disciples that He was the way to the Father. He is the gate into the heavenly city. Faith in Him and His sacrifice are the only way in. You also notice about those gates there in verses 13 and 14 that there are gates in every direction.

The city is wide open to people everywhere. Whatever country you're from, whatever language you speak, whoever your parents are, whatever your job is, if you will come through Christ.

The city is wide open for you to come in. The question for you this morning is, will you? Will you come in?

God says here in chapter 21 verse 7, He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. This overcoming has been what this whole book is written to call us to do. When we read the letters of Christ to the seven churches back at the beginning of the book in chapters 2 and 3, we found that those who overcame are promised to be given the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God, to not be hurt at all by the second death, to be given authority over the nations, to be dressed in white and have their names never blotted out from the book of life, to be made a pillar in the temple of God, to have God's name written on him, and to be given the right to sit with Christ on his throne. These are the rewards of those who overcome. Later on in chapter 12 verse 11 we read of some who overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

Okay, so I want to overcome, but what does it mean exactly to overcome? Well, that's what this book was written to encourage us to do. Don't you wish sometime that there was commentary in Scripture on Scripture? So we could make sure that we were understanding exactly what is so important here about this overcoming. What exactly did John mean when he wrote that down?

Well, you know, John did write a few letters that are in the New Testament.

Maybe he wrote them after he wrote the book of Revelation. Anyway, he said in 1 John 5, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God. To obey His commands.

And His commands are not burdensome for everyone, everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? This is exactly the question we were asking.

John writes, Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

Do you believe?

Will you see this city?

Will you receive these blessings? On that day, will seeing the face of God be the beginning of His judgment of the second death or the beginning of an eternity dwelling with Him in love and service and satisfaction and joy?

Brothers and sisters, what would you trade this hope for?

What persecution could this world threaten? What could they try to take away from you that would matter more than this?

What do you have on this day that is not worth giving up for that?

Let's pray together.

Make us faithful, we pray, even as yous call us to Yourself. We ask all this for our good and for your glory, in Jesus' name. Amen.