1. "God was doing something similar when he gave the aged and imprisoned apostle John this series of seven visions that comprise the final book in the Bible, only he was doing it with complete knowledge of the future. Where Suleiman can only speculate, God, knowing the beginning from the end, can reveal."

2. "We have been regenerated. We have been born again. We're still ourselves. Frank is still Frank, but Frank is now different also than he was before. There's something that's continuous in the life of hope, but it's not that everything is the same, because in one sense everything changes when you become a Christian, and yet you're still you."

3. "I don't think we ever need to worry that anything good in this world will be lost in heaven. I think we can assume it's there, only better."

4. "False gods always lead to false living."

5. "Do not attempt to pay for your own sins. Do not think, because there are consequences for your sins, that you experiencing those consequences somehow pays for them. Kind of like it's a Christian version of karma. There's nothing like that in the Bible."

6. "When the real future comes, the real union of man with God, it will not be the disastrous failure of the Tower of Babel, but this will be the city from God built by Him, coming to us from Him by His grace."

7. "It's the nature of situations in this life to look all-consuming and so present themselves as insoluble and never ending. But for the Christian, none of that is true."

8. "A day without any serious reading and reflection on God's Word is a day wasted."

9. "God's glory will reflect itself off of every person from every nation. We will be absolutely absorbed with interest in the presence of God himself."

10. "This final home will have no sin because it is filled with God Himself. What a wonderful union is held out here between God and His people. And of course, this vision may come at the end of the Bible, but it depicts not the end, but the beginning of all the rest of eternity."

Observation Questions

1. According to Revelation 21:1, what has happened to the first heaven and the first earth, and what else is specifically mentioned as being "no more"?

2. In Revelation 21:3-4, what does the loud voice from the throne declare about God's dwelling place, and what four things does the passage say "shall be no more"?

3. What specific groups of people does Revelation 21:8 identify as having their portion in "the lake that burns with fire and sulfur"?

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 21:12-14, what names are inscribed on the twelve gates of the city, and what names are on the twelve foundations of the wall?

6. According to Revelation 21:25-27, what is the condition of the city's gates, and who alone may enter the city?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon describes the New Jerusalem as both a "sinless city" and a "God-filled city." How does the absence of a temple (verse 22) demonstrate the connection between these two characteristics?

2. In verse 2, the New Jerusalem is described as "coming down out of heaven from God." How does this contrast with the Tower of Babel story, and what does this teach us about how sinners are reconciled to God?

3. The city is described as a cube with equal length, width, and height (verse 16), which mirrors the shape of the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple. What is the significance of this shape being applied to the entire city rather than just one inner room?

4. Revelation 21:3 echoes covenant language found throughout Scripture: "They will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." How does this passage represent the ultimate fulfillment of God's covenant promises from Abraham through Moses to the prophets?

5. The sermon notes that people from "the nations" will walk by the light of God's glory (verses 24-26). How does this vision of the New Jerusalem demonstrate the fulfillment of the Great Commission and God's plan for all peoples?

Application Questions

1. Revelation 21:4 promises that God "will wipe away every tear" and that "death shall be no more." What specific sorrow, loss, or fear in your life right now needs to be viewed in light of this promise, and how might meditating on this truth change how you face that difficulty this week?

2. The sermon emphasized that salvation is "100% grace"—the city comes down from God to us, not built by human effort. In what areas of your life are you tempted to think you must earn God's favor or pay for your own sins through good behavior or experiencing consequences? How does this passage correct that thinking?

3. Verse 27 states that only those "written in the Lamb's book of life" will enter the city. The sermon asked directly: "Will this glorious New Jerusalem include you?" How would you answer that question, and what is the basis for your answer?

4. The vision of nations streaming into the city from gates on every side pictures the fulfillment of global mission. What is one practical step you could take this week to participate in God's work of gathering people from every nation—whether through prayer, giving, going, or sharing the gospel with someone near you?

5. The sermon stated that "a day without any serious reading and reflection on God's Word is a day wasted." What specific adjustment could you make to your daily or weekly routine to ensure you are regularly feeding on the promises of Scripture that fuel hope and holiness?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 65:17-25 — This Old Testament prophecy describes God creating "new heavens and a new earth" where weeping ceases and death is transformed, providing the foundation for John's vision in Revelation 21.

2. 2 Peter 3:10-13 — Peter describes the passing away of the present heavens and earth and believers waiting for "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells," directly paralleling the sermon's discussion of what kind of world is coming.

3. Romans 8:18-25 — Paul describes creation groaning and waiting for liberation from bondage to corruption, which the sermon cited as finding its fulfillment in the vision of the renewed creation in Revelation 21.

4. Hebrews 11:8-16 — This passage describes Abraham looking forward to "the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God," showing how Old Testament saints anticipated the New Jerusalem.

5. Ezekiel 48:30-35 — The closing verses of Ezekiel describe a restored city with twelve gates named after Israel's tribes and concludes with the name "The LORD Is There," providing prophetic background for the New Jerusalem's design and God's dwelling presence.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Contrast Between Human and Divine Eschatology

II. The New Jerusalem Will Be a Sinless City

III. The New Jerusalem Will Be a God-Filled City

IV. The Call to Personal Response and Hope

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Detailed Sermon Outline

the risks of failure scarcely bear thinking about. But face them we must. The prize, though, is awesome. Nothing less than the secure, long-term flourishing of our species. That is worth fighting for.

That's Mustafa Suleyman in his 2023 best-selling book, the Coming Wave. Those are the very last words in the book. Suleiman has chronicled as best he could the recent history of the rise of artificial intelligence and has looked back at other times of great innovation to try to consider both the opportunities, how we can improve on them, and also the dangers and how we can avoid or at least mitigate them. His book is crisply written with interesting examples throughout from history, lots of information. From inside the tech world about the current state of play at the time of writing, he has considered untold catastrophes that could be coming, and also near-utopian futures in everything from agriculture to medical research.

The book presents the possible future in vivid colors that in turns shocks or thrills the reader. He is meaning to cause the reader to to better understand and to more wisely act now in light of what may be coming. He wants the reader to promote some possible versions of the future while preventing others. And what he comes to at the very end of the book is this: the risk of failure scarcely bear thinking about, but face them we must. The prize though is awesome, nothing less than the secure long-term flourishing of our species.

That is worth fighting for.

And friends, that is the heart cry of an unsecured humanist eschatology. That's the best that they can reach for.

God was doing something similar. When he gave the aged and imprisoned apostle John this series of seven visions that comprise the final book in the Bible, the book of Revelation, only he was doing it with complete knowledge of the future. You may want to open your Bibles to look at this last book now. Let me quickly review for you these seven visions since it's been a few weeks since we've been in the book. You want to find it, just take the Bible that you brought or the Bible that we provide.

Revelation is always in the same open the back cover, there you are. Unless you brought a study Bible and then you have deep concordances and maps and all kinds of articles. But the last book in the Bible, the inspired part of the volume you're holding, is this book of Revelation. And we're in the next to last chapter. But if you turn to the beginning of the book of Revelation, let me just walk you through these chapters.

Those of you who aren't familiar with the Bible, I'll just let you know that each book in the Bible, there's 66 of those books in this one book, and there are chapter divisions. Those are the larger numbers. The verse divisions are the smaller numbers. We're just going to look quickly through these chapters. There are 22 chapters in Revelation.

We're going to quickly look through these chapters to give you a reminder of what's in this book. The initial vision in chapters 1 to 3 includes the specific letters to the churches at the time. Then the second vision, chapters 4 to 7, are the seven seals, not animal seals, but seals of a scroll. And then chapters 8 to 11 are about the seven so what's opened in history in terms of the seal broken, and then the trumpets, it sounded out. So it's that intensifying, repeated but intensifying picture of the truth.

That's followed in chapters 12 to 14 by the fourth vision, which is the one about the woman, the dragon, and the two beasts, the land beast and the sea beast. And then we have the fifth vision about the seven bowls in chapters 15 and 16 as this wrath that's been decreed as the seals are broken and heralded in the trumpets is then poured out. In these bowls as we have this intensifying picture of God's judgment on the world. And then the sixth vision in chapters 17 to 19 is about the final battle and the fall of Babylon. And then the final vision in chapters 20 to the end, 20 to 22 is about the reign of Christ and the final judgment that we were considering the last time we were in Revelation here on Sunday morning.

And then the new heaven and the new earth, which we come to this morning. So in this book, God was instructing the Christians of the day and the days to come about what they could expect of the future and thereby intending to instill in them, to instill in us, wisdom about how to behave, about what to think, about what to feel, what to realistically hope and plan for in the days of persecution that they were experiencing and that we too today currently face. And yet where Suleiman can only speculate God, knowing the beginning from the end, as the theologians put it, not being subject to time, where Suleiman can only speculate, God can reveal.

So here we have it in our chapter. He can reveal not only His plans, His intentions, but the very future itself. And that's what He's done in the Bible. And particularly in this book of Revelation. So let's turn to Revelation chapter 21 and listen as I read it to you now.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. '

and he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' and he said to me, 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ' But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke to me saying, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. ' and He carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and showed me the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed: on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, on the west three and the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width.

And he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits by human measurement. Which is also an angel's measurement. The wall was built of Jasper and the city was pure gold like clear glass.

The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was Jasper, the second Sapphire, the third Agate, the fourth Emerald, the fifth Onyx, the sixth Carnelian, the seventh Chrysolite, the eighth Beryl, the ninth Topaz, the tenth Chrysoprase, the eleventh Jacinth, and the twelfth Amethyst. And the twelve gates were the twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. So friends, with this chapter we come to the climax of the book of Revelation, almost the summit, the actual summit is I think chapter 22, verses one to five, the very top of the summit, which I deliberately left for next time.

But here we get this all of this vision of chapter 22 building up to this. We're on top of this revelation of the new heavens and the new earth, the new Jerusalem. If you look at verses one and two, they seem to be introducing the whole chapter with verse one, really introducing what we see in verses 3 to 8, and then you look there in verse sort of who is in heaven, and then verse 2 seemingly introduced verses 9 to 27, more what is in heaven, the New Jerusalem. Look there in verse 5 we see the Lord saying, Behold, I am making all things new. One basic question we have to ask when we read this is what is this world that we're in now?

All have to do with the world that we're reading of here. And Christians have used lots of different verbs to try to explain what God does. Does He replace? Does He repair? I don't think either of those are good ways to understand it.

I think the best way to understand it is with the term renew, reprise, he is giving a regeneration, a redemption as it were, to the world. I think the best way we can understand it by analogy is our own experience, those of us here who are Christians. We have been regenerated. We have been born again. We're still ourselves.

You know, Frank is still Frank, but Frank is now different also than he was before. You know, JJ is still JJ, but he's different than he was before. For. It's the way it is. There's something that's continuous in the life of hope, but it's not that everything is the same, because in one sense everything changes when you become a Christian, and yet you're still you.

I think that's the best way we can pull together all the disparate parts of the Bible's teaching about what happens when there is this new heavens and this new earth. There is newness and there's still though a continuity. And what we see from this exalted height about our eternal state is that this new heaven and new earth joined together in this new Jerusalem will be a teeming city with two unique properties that I want us to look at this morning, two unique properties. And the first is it will be a sinless city.

It will be a sinless city. Our chapter almost begins with the great negations. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Well, as Revelation does so often, we've already seen that, we've already been told that in the chapter just before. If you look up at chapter 20, verse 11, we read, Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it from His presence earth and sky fled away.

So this is another presentation of this same time and this same truth. Remember what Jesus had said that last week when he was teaching his disciples outside of Jerusalem as they walked in and out and they saw the fig tree and he pointed up to it at one point and he said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Now we always stress what he's stressing, my words will never pass away, but it's everything what he begins with. Heaven and earth will pass away. Jesus taught that clearly.

In fact, if we keep reading here in Revelation chapter 21 in verse 1, we see that the sea is specially singled out. Now, I cannot deal with all the details there are in this chapter, lest it just become a running commentary. You'll be helped if you leave your Bible open so you're looking down easily in sea. But there are enough people in this room who are either in the Navy or who like being on the ocean that you might actually be hearing this as is some sad news about heaven that there is no sea. As one friend said to me yesterday, what about the Great Barrier Reef?

I mean, these are good questions. I think they do slightly miss the point of what's being communicated. If you study the sea in the Old Testament, you see that the sea is presented as a place of chaos. It's not a place where the people of Israel tended to live. The people of Israel in the Old Testament were not the Dutch or the Chinese seafarers.

They were more like the Kentucky hillbillies. They were the people who lived in the mountains, in the hills. They were isolated. When they came down onto the plains to deal with the urban people, the Philistines who were great seafarers, you know, or the Assyrian Empire, the Egyptian, all these urban empires, then they traded with the world. But they themselves were a bit foreign to the sea.

And that's what I think the Lord is picking up here in this image. I don't think we ever need to worry that anything good in this world will be lost in heaven. I think we can assume it's there, only better. And so in some way that's consistent with how this is presented here. What Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:13 was according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

And that's what we're seeing depicted here in Revelation 21. Throughout this chapter we see elements of our world that we take for granted are just missing. None more striking than that phrase in verse 4. Look at that phrase. We've sung it several times in songs already today.

Death shall be no more. You heard that section that Lauren read earlier from Isaiah 65 where this penalty of death, this clearest aspect of the curse of Adam's fall, death has been revoked, ended.

It's like John Owen put it in his title to his classic work on the Atonement, the Death of Death in the Death of Christ. We read of this coming liberation in Romans chapter 8, For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption. And obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Friends, this is the vision right here in Revelation of where we see this happening, where creation's longing is met. Their subjection ended.

Their hope to be set free from bondage to corruption is fulfilled. Here we see them obtaining the long-promised freedom of the glory of the children of God. And he begins so tenderly there in verse 4. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There are some Christians who like very high hymnity.

And when I brought in the song a couple of years ago, Glory Land, I thought, nah, it's gonna be met with scorn by some people. I just wanna point out Glory Land is a lot like this verse. Look at how specific and simple God's promises here are to the Apostle John. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

They will not experience pain and death. He will swallow up death forever. It's just like the Lord promised back in Isaiah, He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away all tears from their faces. No wonder Isaiah could prophesy in Isaiah 35, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.

They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Why do they say sorrow and sighing are flee away? Because of what it says here about death shall be no more. The ancient curse of the fall is revoked. So it is that the sun itself is no longer needed.

So much has this world changed. Satan is defeated. Sin is banished. Where in the fall sin came and our first parents ran and hid from God, now we here are invited to live in His presence forever. Where there were tears and sorrow, they will be no more.

Where the garden and the earth were cursed, this renewed earth has the glorified city of God. Again, it all sounds like glory land, doesn't it? It sounds like some of the things we're seeing in Hark! I hear the harps eternal. Mourning and crying and pain are so much a part of our lives these days in this world.

That trying to envision a future life without them is an important way for us to describe a reality that is so foreign to our experience. Philosophers refer to negation as a very important way to express knowledge. We express new areas of knowledge often using the privative ah in front of a word, trying to explain that It's not this and it's not that that's common to our experience. God had promised Adam on the day Adam disobeyed him in the Garden of Eden, death would enter human experience. You see that in Genesis 2.

And it did. And it reigned from Adam until Christ. But then the second Adam came, Jesus Christ. And through him, as we can see in our own resurrection, life now Now reigns. We think about this a little bit in Wednesday night Bible study, Colossians 3.

We're thinking about our life is now hidden with Christ in God. We who have died, says Paul, to the Colossians. How as Paul put it in Romans 8? He said, We know that the whole of creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Or as he wrote to the Corinthians, By a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection.

Of the dead. So John here is seeing the time when that new creation is finally and fully realized. If you look down at verse 8, we see some of the sins that are just presented as examples that will no longer be among us. He's just picking up on a few of these, not going through all of them. Thank you for the emails about various ones of them.

The cowardly would be those who fall away under persecution. So back in chapter 12 we had the moving picture of those who conquered the accuser by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Well, the cowardly would be the opposite of those people. The cowardly would be those people who are not willing to give their lives in order to testify of the Lamb. Back here in verse 8, the faithless would not be those so much who are without faith in the sense of not having religion, but it's those who generally don't keep their word.

They're traitors. The next few are pretty clear. The sorcerers, they're the poisoners, people who mix magical potions and cast spells, usually as part of their worship of another god, which then of course brings us to that last summary, sort of the sinners there in verse 8, the idolaters. That's the source of every kind of sin.

False gods always lead to false living. And these people are all the opposites of the one mentioned in the verse before, verse 7, as a conqueror. The conqueror is the one who's following Christ despite crosswinds. If you go back to the letters in chapters 2 and 3, you'll see that in every letter the overcomer, the conqueror, is mentioned. The one who continues to persevere in following Christ, maintaining their faithfulness throughout their lives.

So there's no sin in this city. The other big negation that we should notice here, beyond there being no sin in the New Jerusalem, is down in verse 22. And it is that there is no temple in this city. Yes, it says God, the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, but that's using that language kind of symbolically. It's describing God as a temple.

The kind of physical structure that we associate with a temple there is none. And that would make it utterly unlike any city this elderly man, John, had ever seen in his whole life. The little town of Patmos in this island where he had been sent out to and exiled to, they would have had temples in them, even a small town like the town of Nazareth that he had grown up in. Certainly larger places like Caesarea or Jerusalem, let alone Ephesus. Would have great big temples and many of them.

They would be showing that there are lots of gods to be honored by lots of temples. And some of them would be large and imposing and none more so than those built to the emperors of the day who imagined their Roman glory to be eternal, Roman power flexing itself all over the world through magnificent structures that looked like they would last longer than the world itself. But they wouldn't. Yet here John sees a city, and guess what? No temples to Roman power.

In fact, no temples to any earthly power. In fact, no temples to any false celestial power. What kind of city is this? Where would one go for one's needs to be fulfilled? Needs for health, for wisdom, for fortune.

Ah, unless of course, all those needs were no more. They were all gone. There was no need for such services.

But that leads us to an even more striking realization. Not only is there no temple to the Roman gods or the Roman emperor, but There's no temple to the true God. There's no magnificent building in the middle like David had built and Solomon and then had been re-envisioned in the end of Ezekiel. There's nothing like that. How could that be?

Because no more mediation. Was needed. It was complete. You know, in John's gospel, when we hear of Jesus in chapter 19 on the cross, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

And it's that point that we read in Mark's gospel, and the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. That's the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. The Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant had been. That was the symbol of God's special presence. And it was separated by this thick curtain which could only be passed through once a year and that only by the high priest.

But now, now there would be no separation forever. The tear was complete and it began from the top. So now in the New Covenant, we are able to relate to God.

Now the only temple we read in verse 22 is the Lord God Almighty in the Lamb, and God's presence permeates the whole city. But there's no separate building like a temple to be found. We look down in verse 25, we see that the gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. This perpetual light shows us that God is never absent. And both by this and the gates always being open, it shows the complete safety and security of the people of God forever.

That's a settled matter. So much we can say from all this, all the details here. Let me just simply point out a couple of particular uses for us. First, friends, all this should cause us to thank God.

I don't know what all the rain is that's fallen on your life lately, but I know that none of it obliterates this promise of God's continued action for our good. Or this pledge that He will begin a saving of us that we could never have done for ourselves. And so we should thank Him that the day for sermons and churches will end as surely as the day of sacrifices and temples. We can thank God that shadow will give way to substance.

Loving notes from our absent spouse will give way to more fully loving presence, now and forever.

The other use to make of this particularly it should cause us to hope. It's the nature of situations in this life to look all-consuming and so present themselves as insoluble and never ending. But for the Christian, none of that is true. Do you see how hope is rooted in this promise of a sinless city to come? Kids, ask your parents at home over lunch, what hopes they have from this chapter for the future.

There's no problem that you can name that is not meant to be swallowed up in the hope that's held out here in Revelation 21. So, beloved, pray that God open your heart more widely and completely to believing his promises here and trusting him. And so see hope rekindled. In your heart this week as you consider that we are headed to a sinless city. The New Jerusalem will be a sinless city.

And why is that? That's what leads us to the second aspect of this city that we want to notice. And it is because it is a God-filled city.

It is a God-filled city. City. I love the way Wheaton professor Leland Ryken summarized this chapter in Revelation. He put it well, he said, the profusion of details is not intended to yield a composite visual picture, but instead represents a symbolic richness. The garden of perfection at the beginning of the Bible is here completed in a city of perfection.

Look back at verse 2. It seems to introduce this second half of the chapter, verses 9 to 27. Jerusalem is named in verse 2, and then you look over again in verse 10, it's named again, and it's described from verse 10 to the end of the chapter. And here it seems a kind of blend of the Garden of Eden and kind of the temple, and that's altogether become this city. The fact that both times it is named in verses 2 and 10, it is followed with the description, coming down out of heaven from God, shows that it is in striking contrast with what?

The ancient Tower of Babel where men tried to build their way up to God. This is the opposite. When the real the real future comes, the real union of man with God, it will not be the disastrous failure of the Tower of Babel, but this will be the city from God built by Him, coming to us from Him by His grace. Just like we see the water of life, you look there in verse 6 it mentions the water of life for all who are thirsty, this would be for all of us. He says it's without payment.

Again and again we see the graciousness of God's provision.

When you look back and you think about that, this is the city that Father Abraham was ultimately looking for. When he left Ur of the Chaldees, we read in Hebrews 11, he was looking forward to that city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. It would be a city of refuge for sinners. Built from first to last by God's own grace. Friends, do not attempt to pay for your own sins.

Do not attempt to pay for your own sins. Do not think, because there are consequences for your sins, that you experiencing those consequences somehow pays for them. Kind of like it's a Christian version of karma. There's nothing like that in the Bible. Your only hope in approaching a righteous God is not any good that you do, but it's only the good that God has done through His only Son in sending Him to live a life of perfect obedience and die on the cross as a sacrifice in the place of all of us that would turn and trust in Him.

That's our basis for hope of being accepted by this great God. You should turn from your sins, trust in this Christ in His goodness and His righteousness. Here in the summit of God's revelation of Himself in the Word, even here, intending no doubt to elicit a real response from John's first readers and hearers, it's so clear that God's grace is the only way sinners like us will ever come to to find forgiveness and to dwell at peace with such a good God. It is 100% grace. This city is made up of gigantic pearls and see-through gold and precious jewels of every kind.

All of this is to reflect the majesty and splendor of the one whose city it is. The size of the city is to show the greatness, its comprehensiveness. It's big enough for all of God's children and its shape, did you notice its shape? The length and the width and the height of the city are all the same. Therefore it means it is what?

It's a cube. Where is that shape significant in Scripture? In the Old Testament with the Holy of Holies. It is a cube. That's reflecting that special presence of God is now, as it was associated with the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament, associated with the entire new heavens and new earth.

It's kind of like the picture of the temple at the end of Ezekiel where it had expanded to cosmic proportions. Showing that God was again with His people. And as Ezekiel says in the last words of his prophecy, and the name of the city from that time on shall be the Lord is there. It's a beautiful picture.

One analogy of this expansion would be our choir loft. What choir loft, you say? Ah, well, old Metropolitan members will visit from time to time, and they will wonder what's happened to the choir loft that for a century was a prominent feature of this building. It was just right over there. Ethan and Wendy can remember standing in it, in robes and singing in it.

But in 2010, because of increasing numbers of hearers, we as a church decided to pull out that whole platform and to find someone who still made pews to match our 1912 pews and we found them in Germany and we made new pews for this whole section and new pews there and we built in a brand new balcony that would match all to have 150 more spaces. And it's been a great decision. Really glad we did. And when the old members asked me, But what happened to the choir? I don't say the choir loft has vanished.

I say we've expanded it. And now the whole congregation is the choir. Did you hear you guys sing earlier? Everything from bluegrass to gospel to classical. We're praising the Lord.

We expanded the choir. Friends, that's the idea of the Holy of Holies growing out and expanding to take up the whole of the new heavens and the new earth, the whole of the new Jerusalem. What was exclusive to the Holy of Holies in God's presence is now for all of the people of God, for all those who are concerned. That's the idea here. At that time, as it says in Jeremiah 3:17, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord.

One of the ways we learn from the book of Revelation is by the compounding of images to express almost inexpressible realities. And that's been one of the ways as we've studied it, we've had to learn not to read it quite as woodenly, but to realize each of these images is bringing its own significance. We saw it earlier in the book when John heard of the 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel and he looked and he saw a great multitude from every nation, that no one could number. Not two different realities, two different aspects of the same reality. Or when he had heard of the lion of the tribe of Judah in chapter 5, verse 5, and he looked and he saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain in verse 6.

It wasn't that he heard of a lamb-y lion or saw a lionish lamb. No, no, no, both images were meant to convey a crucial aspect of the truth that is the Son of God. So here in our chapter we see the people of God represented by two different images, each capturing various aspects of the reality. God's eternal people here are represented as a bride and as a city. Consider the way the people of God are represented as a bride.

Seems to be the opposite of the great whore city of Babylon back in chapter 17 and 18. The image first occurs there in Revelation in chapter 19. You look at verses 7 to 9. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, Write this, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. The point of the image of the bride here is the beauty and the loveliness and the desirability of the bride, the pleasure that the bridegroom takes in the bride and that the bride takes in the bridegroom. God knows that kind of pleasure in his people. And His people know that kind of pleasure in Him. This is a picture rooted in the Old Testament's picture of God's relationship with His people.

This intensifies in verse 3. Look down at verse 3, we read, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. Could there be a richer vein of language in the Scriptures to examine? It echoes what God said to Abram of old, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

This is what the Lord said to His people Israel when they had left Egypt. He said, I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God, and they shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God. Friends, this is language describing a covenant relationship. This is what God had promised to his people through Moses before he led them out of Egypt.

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burden of the Egyptians. From then on, through the prophets of the Old Testament to the New Testament, this kind of language continues until finally it all comes that comes right here to this book of Revelation, chapter 21, where heaven and earth are joined, merged. That's what we see going on here. All this simply reinforces what I was saying earlier about the hope that this fires in us. I mean, he has done so much for us and promises to do even more.

Remember Titus chapter 1 where Paul writes, In hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began. Oh, friend, pray that God help you to set your hope on Him and all your promises that you see in His Word. And if we do find our hope for tomorrow growing, we'll also find that that helps us in our battle against sin today. Think of 1 John 3. When John writes, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is, and everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself, as He is pure.

Oh, friend, how can this not stoke your heart with hope? Read His Word. Did you notice that last little phrase in verse 5?

These words are trustworthy and true. That's why he says he wanted them written down for our sakes. God always speaks the truth, and his Word can be trusted, can be relied upon. So you impoverish and you starve yourself if you leave God's Word by your bedside, closed, unopened, unconsumed. A day without any serious reading and reflection on God's Word is a day wasted.

CHBC, notice another thing. Look in verse 24. Isn't interesting, there's one source of light, the Lord God, and people from the nations. That doesn't just mean one nation like France. That means the nations, all the non-Israel nations of the world.

The people of the nations are walking according to that one light. There's a unity of understanding and purpose and even delights. And that means no more strife, no more ethnic divisions, no more national defensivenesses. I think we have a preview of the heavenly city in many ways, including in this way, in the local church. I thank God for how much love and fellowship we know here in this local congregation.

As we walk by the same light that God gives us from His Word and by His Spirit that we all share. Friends, if you would have more unity, study His Word for nearer conformity to it.

As Jonathan Edwards considered the light of the city, he reflected, All things in heaven remarkably show forth the beauty and loveliness of God and Christ. And have the brightness and sweetness of divine love upon them. The very light that shines in and fills that world is the light of love, for it is the shining of the glory of the Lamb of God, that most wonderful influence of lamb-like meekness and love that fills the heavenly Jerusalem with light.

One more detail to point out, there's so many we could take notice of. It's all those gates in the city walls. Did you notice that? Like some cities would have one or two gates, and it made it more secure. But this city had gates on every side, and not just one gate, but three gates on every side, making sure lots of people could come in from every place, from every direction.

From all around the earth. You see what this is showing is another visual cue like we have of the choirs in chapters 5 and 7 of the fulfillment of the Great Commission, that people come into this city from all over. And so we are encouraged to know that these promises of the fulfillment of the Great Commission are for us, and it should encourage us as a church to work to find ways where we can get some of our number to go where no one else has ever gone to tell the good news. And we should pray for others of us to go where our help is needed to strengthen the work of the gospel. And for others of us to stay here and witness to our family and friends on the hill and prepare this place to send out workers around the world so that people will be streaming in from from Capitol Hill in Prince George's County, and from Racine, Wisconsin, and from Fort Worth, Texas.

Let's beseech the Lord to call out workers from our midst and to bless us with seeing conversions from here and from many other places, so that we will see this new Jerusalem filled with the presence of God, also filled with the presence of His people. That's what we want to see. Friends, there it is. There's so many other things we could point out. I hope you have great conversations over lunch.

These are the two main things I want you to see. It's a sinless city and it's a God-filled city. This is one of the most glorious chapters of the Bible, filled with the best of promises. This final home will have no sin because it is filled with God Himself. What a wonderful union is held out here between God and His people.

And of course, this vision may come at the end of the Bible, but it depicts not the end, but the beginning of all the rest of eternity, as the life of God and His people stretches out into the future forever.

Now some people, if they're honest, may hear that and squirm. When they hear about everlasting choirs, they may think of everlasting hymns here or sermons.

And I understand that church services do not do the best at conveying the excitement and joy that we find in the presence of God. I think of the humorist Will Rogers who one time when the Republican convention in Cleveland was just unusually boring, said it got so bad that the committee, the convention even asked the churches of Cleveland to open up to bring some excitement.

Friends, the picture of heaven is not boring at all. God's glory will reflect itself off of every person from every nation. We will be absolutely absorbed with interest in the presence of God himself. We think from time to time like at that memorial service we had for Maxine this past Tuesday, or at other funerals of Christians you've been to recently, that we have precious promises from God. Psalm 116:15, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

And that's true. This corporate promise of the city is worked out in individual lives. Look at verse 7. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. That conquering is believing in Christ, continuing to believe despite the trials and persecutions John saw depicted in this book.

But see how the promise is crafted to be heard and responded to by individuals. Down in verse 27, that very last phrase in the chapter, shows us, as we've seen before, that the only saved ones are those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And friends, those aren't family names. It doesn't say Chen or Dever or Jeffords or Jones. It's Chip or Nancy or Alex or Jamie.

Friends, brothers and sisters, an even greater day is coming And it won't just be this person or that, but all of God's children who hear the call, Come on home, and the entire family is gathered together forever with the Lord. In this city without sin and with God's unmediated presence, if God is for us, who can be against us? How could He be any more for us? For all God's people, this vision promises absolute security and abundant, unending joy. Now, if you know yourself this morning to be a sinner, you're welcome to join us.

Will you join us here? Will you be with us on that last day? In some ways, that's the real question that such a passage leaves each person with today: Will this this glorious New Jerusalem include you?

If you do nothing, it will not.

The problem isn't on God's side. The Lord said long ago through Isaiah, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear. Friends, this is why Christ came and died and rose again. He ascended and he poured out his Spirit on his own to apply the justification that he had won for his own and to prepare us with his Spirit sanctifying work to be a part of this heavenly city.

And to be being prepared for it even this week. My question to you is, have you seen even this week how God is preparing you to be forever with Him?

Let's pray. Lord God, we thank youk for these promises that there will be a day coming for your own where sorrows, where tears will be wiped away, Lord, where death will be no more. We thank youk for this promise for our eternity without fear. Lord, we pray that yout would cause this hope to be in our hearts and to be truly grounded for each one of us in faith in Christ. We pray in His name.

Amen.