It’s good to be back. Missed you all.  I can’t remember in 13, 14 years where I’ve missed two Sundays in a row. I can’t remember. It’s been a long time since I did.  But I wanted to thank everybody for filling in. You know, Mike played that bass for us last couple of weeks. I thanked him.  And Chris, he was able to fill in and hold it for a couple of weeks for me. And then Bob and Paula filled in for us for Wednesday night dinners. And all of you come together so that we can get away.  It’s the family of God. It’s not the pastor of God. So I think it’s a cool thing that we can do this. And it just doesn’t miss a beat. It just keeps on going steady. So I appreciate all that let us get away for a couple of weeks.  It’s been a whirlwind. You know, two weeks ago I was getting on a plane to go to Seattle at 7 in the morning. Got to Seattle.
Got on a cruise ship. Spent a week in Alaska, which was great. And last Sunday I was on an airplane again flying back.  Just like 12, 10 hour flight back with the lows of the time. A couple days to try to get used to East Coast time again.

And then we were straight up into Ocala to start Melody’s Kairos. It wasn’t too much of a break there. She’s been going pretty steady. The Kairos is going fantastic. You guys all, you all really helped her get through this. And you will be very proud of her and Stephanie the way that this Kairos is going. Next week they will share with you on how it’s going up there. And Melody said she’s seen God move. And she said to let you guys know that she saw God move. It’s kind of odd.
She’s the pastor’s wife and we don’t talk about this much. But the growth that I’ve seen in her through leading this Kairos has just been amazing. Praise God.
You think that you’re going up there to minister to a lot of people that need ministering to, which is true. But you’re being ministered to at the same time. And it’s been a great time. I can’t wait for her to share next week what’s been going on up there because God’s moving and God’s moving here too.

As we get back into revelations chapter 21, if you all have your Bibles, we’ll continue there. I thank Chris for picking up chapter 20 and going through chapter 20. But now we get into chapter 21 and we’ll go through verses 1 through 10. And as we normally
do, we’ll read these verses together and then go back at it a little bit deeper. So if you have your Bibles, this is where we’ll start.

It said, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there was no longer any sea. And I saw a holy city in Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride adorned by her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them and they shall be his people and God himself will be among them. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and they will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. And he said, write, write for these words are faithful and true. Then he said to me, it was, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one thirst from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit those things and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly for the cowardly and the unbelieving and abominable and the murders and the immoral persons and the sorcerers and the idolaters and all the liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Then one of the angels who had the seven bowls, all seven last place came and spoke with me saying, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the land. And he carried me away in the spirit to great high
mountain showed me a holy city, Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

Let’s go to the prayer. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this scripture that we’ve just read. Now we ask you to open our eyes and ears and a heart for what it means to us as we leave this building today, as we leave this church, that there’s something here for each one of us to take out to the world. And father, we pray now for it to be revealed through your Holy Spirit to each one of us. As this message goes on, how we love you, Lord, and we thank you for all you do in our lives.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

So we go back and look at this at verse one. It says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first age passed away. And there was no longer any sea. See, as we see, this is the chapter starts all centers. The unredeemed nonbelievers, those that denied Christ all of the time are in the lake of fire forever. And the universe has been destroyed or uncreated, as we could say. And God creates a new universe to be the permanent home for the redeemed. A new heaven and a new earth. The universe we know is destroyed and a new creation will replace it. And it lasts forever. This is the Old Testament reality that we see in Psalms 105, 25 and 26. And then also in Isaiah 65, 17 through 66 and 66 to 22. As well as the New Testament reality that we see in Luke 21, 33. No longer any seas right now. See, right now, three quarters of the world is water. But the new environment will not be water based. And have a different climate, different conditions, which we will see in chapter 22. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass.
And they’ll pass away with a great noise. And the elements will melt with the fervent heat of the earth. And the works that are in it will be burned up. A new heaven and a new earth. New heaven is the atmospheric heaven around and above the earth. And this new heaven will be a perfect environment similar to the Garden of Eden.  A unique distinction of this new earth will be the vast oceans on this earth that cover three quarters of the earth right now. They won’t be there. There will be much more land. They will see the tree of life restored with that water that flows from the throne of God. It didn’t rain in the Garden of Eden. Plants were water from beneath the earth.

In verse two says, And now I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned her husband. See, New Jerusalem, this is a capital city of heaven and a place perfect and holiness. It seems coming down out of heaven tells it already existed. This is the city where the saints live. The bride is an important metaphor for the church. And John’s imagery here extends from the third part of the Jewish wedding. The ceremony and believers in the bride in New Jerusalem come to meet Christ. The bridegroom in the final ceremony of the redemptive history. The whole city occupied by all the saints is called the bride.
So then all the saints must finally be included in the bride’s imagery in the bridal dress. God has brought home a bride for his beloved son. And then all the saints live with Christ in the father’s house. And now John sees the new holy city, which is not in heaven, but is called that since everyone who will be in it is holy. This is Christ’s kingdom. The New Jerusalem be coming down to the new heaven and the new earth mentioned in verse one. The old heaven and the old earth in 2011 fled away and was no more. The city is illustrated as a bride because it contains the bride and takes her character. And John saw the bride adorned for her husband because the time of consumption is his rival. The concept of the bride includes not only the church, but all the rest of the redeemed from all the ages who will forever live in the eternal city. In first Corinthians 15, 28 tells us this. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him so that God may be all in all. Verse three says, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them and they shall be his people. And God himself will be among them. See, the tabernacle was the original symbol of God dwelling within his people with his people. The eternity, eternity, God will dwell with mankind again. And the tabernacle means the
dwelling place of God and no longer will be far off in heaven. And to me, that is where Christ is. Heaven is just like God walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden. He will be in heaven with us continually. And the Bible says here that if we are ashamed of Jesus here on the earth, he will be ashamed of us in heaven. He will claim us as his very own. He will fellowship with us all the time. In Matthew 5, 8 says this, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Verse four, And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death. There will be no longer any mourning, no more crying, pain. The first things have passed away. Since there won’t be any tears, nothing will be sad. Nothing will be disappointing. Nothing will be wrong. All tears, pain, sorrow, death will be removed in the heavenly new Jerusalem where Christians will now live. The exact opposite of the curse that happened from Adam’s sin. The effects of the curse are removed and all things made new. God just doesn’t repair the creation. He recreates it for his children to enjoy eternity. Just like
the disciples knew security when Jesus was there to take care of all their needs.
We will know perfect peace and joy in heaven. Jesus is the king of peace. Jesus defeated death in the cross. The biggest fear of man. We just read where the believers won’t taste a second death. That won’t happen. The fear has gone away. Christians have eternal life. There won’t be any reason to cry in heaven. An enemy and all the problems he brought upon Christians have been thrown into the lake of fire. All the negative stuff has been done away with and it’s gone. Verse five, he says, and he
who sits on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. And he said, right? For these words are faithful and true. Here we see God sitting on the throne
saying that he makes all things new. And when we are saved, we become a new creature. We know this again is true for the believer. Just as he did not throw us away and get a new person. He says, I make all things new. He didn’t say he made new things here. We see Jesus told them to write, write this from John to write this because all things he has been shown to be true. And Jesus is the truth. Verses six through eight. It’ll say it’s done. The eternal purpose of God to gather a holy devoted
people for himself has now been accomplished. We’ll see the alpha and the omega. The beginning. God is the origin and the source of all things. And then you’ll see in the end, he is also the goal. The aim of all things. Verse six says, then he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega in the beginning and the end. And I will give to the one who thirsts for the spring of water life without cost. When we say alpha omega, it’s done. The words mark the end of redemptive history. This is the end of the history of that statement of divine finality. It represents God’s promise that his this new state will be forever. And alpha omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. That has the face. The phrase represents the sum of all things.
In revelations 111 and 22, 12 through 13, it is used of Christ. Here is used for God, the father. Let us know the deity of both of them. Father and son, just as Jesus said on the cross. It is finished. Jesus is the way to get to the water of life. In fact, he is the water. He is life. And he who hungers and thirsts after righteousness will be filled. There is nothing before him and there’s nothing after him. Heaven belongs to those who look,
knowing their souls are perched by sin and have sought the satisfaction. A citizen of heaven is described. First, letting us know those who recognize the desperate spiritual need for hunger and thirst for righteousness. The water of life in our verse, the last spiritual water of which Jesus spoke. John 4, 13 and 14 says this. Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks in this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. But the water that I will give him will
become becoming him. A well of water springing up to eternal life. I was thinking about that this morning whenever I had a couple of minutes to talk with Stephanie before she went into the prison. And the life changing that they saw in these women from when they came in on Thursday. When they came in on Thursday, they sat in a group of six women and didn’t even talk to each other. They barely made a noise to each other. But by Sunday, with the eternal life of the water of God, they saw something different in their lives and changed. And that’s one of the biggest things I see about pilers and that experience. I’ve never seen a transformation of people that quick. And in such strong adjectives, I can’t come up with of how they change so quickly. And yet you think sometimes it might be fake because there are cons that maybe they are just going along with it because they know you like you’re a Christian. I want to make you happy. But then we get the evidence of those that have been out for a while that we see that it is a life changing thing. That changes people’s lives. That eternal water. That they won’t thirst anymore. And it’s just amazing how God works. And whenever I thought of this verse, I thought of that this morning. And it’s great how I saw what Stephanie and Melanie and there’s another lady there named Tiffany that comes to our church on HG nights. And the life changing that’s going on in them when they drink that water from God. Verse seven says, He who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son. He overcomes anyone that exercise faith in Jesus Christ. A person who in faith drinks the water of salvation freely offered by God. If you recall each of the seven letters that we started revelations with the churches we studied in the promise of. And then all in that he that overcomes will inherit these things. Just as the Bible is an equal inheritor of all the husband has, the bride has, the bride is the inheritor of the husband. So the church, the bride of Christ will inherit all that he has. He even promises he will be our God and we his children. The spiritual inheritance of all believers will receive is the fullness of this new creation from the scripture. We see there is something we must overcome. If we are faithful to him in face of all odds, we will inherit eternal life.
And the New Testament is actually an inheritance to the believers. If we truly believe we can collect on that inheritance, whoever we are faithful to, that is our God. I’ll say that again. Whoever we are faithful to is our God. We see a lot of this in the world. Whenever you think about it, who are you faithful to out in the world? That is your God. And it can be many different things. But when we’re talking to Christian, who are you faithful to? That is our God. And if he is our God, he will claim us as his child.
Verse 8 goes on to say, but for the cowardly and the unbelieving and the abominable and the murderers and the immoral persons who and searchers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. This is a serious warning about the kinds of people that will be outcast from the new heaven and the earth and the lake of fire. The New Testament often goes beyond just citing unbelief, unbelief, enlisting character and lifestyle traits for the outcast, just citing unbelief, enlisting character, life traits of those outcast.
It is done so believers can identify these people. And it’s not for judgment. It’s not for us to judge others, but to have compassion and empathy and want to tell them the good news. That’s what it’s for. It’s not the judgment. I’m better than you because I know this because me at one time was in the same position. But now I know the truth and I want to share it with you again. Another reason why we go into the prisons, why we have age, why do we have ministries to share with others? The youth group, many things going on, sharing what we know. The contrast between verses seven and eight are graphic. They represent old age concept that there are only two kinds of people with God. There’s only two kinds of people that God with the God knows, believers and unbelievers. They experience two different lifestyles on earth and they go in two different destinations in eternity. Believers, eternal life. Unbelievers go to the second death. That is the lake of fire. And fear is not of God. Fear is the opposite of faith. In fact, it is mentioned two times here, cowardly and unbelieving. Jesus just can’t be someone’s savior unless they believe he is their savior. The Bible speaks of sins like listed in his first as being abomination. Here, not my words, but the word of God says
those who abominable things are taking part in the second death. Abomination meaning vile, polluted, detestable, wholly caught up in wickedness. And it breaks
my heart for those that I know that are that in that situation, as we probably all know that of somebody in that position. And notice we see some description of people who will have the second death. Notice it says murder, not accidental killing or killing in a war premeditated murder for those who hate their neighbors and never repent. So many types of people listed here. Sorcerers has to do with dealing with the occult and also drugs. Adulterers is anyone who puts anything ahead of God. And liars can do more than harm than you can imagine with the line that we have. And we all, many of us have a tendency to tell a little white lie, but any truth on truth is a lie. Those that live in these ways give evidence that they are not safe and will not enter into this
heavenly city and lake that burns with fire and brimstone. And the second death will happen that we’ve talked about before. After we are forgiven of our sins and born again, we must practice salvation. We must not have that habit of sinning anymore. It’s not just sitting or we are. We are sinners saved by grace. We may slip and we may sin, but we do more. Do we have an advocate with the father? Repent, ask for forgiveness. Then, as Jesus told the women who are the Pharisees in cognitive adultery, go and sin no more. Do not practice sin. That’s what it’s talking about. The reality of the truth in the word of God is if we don’t change and we don’t turn from these evils, is that you will be thrown into the lake of fire. And I’ve talked about this many times. That’s the difference in this week. It means close to what we were before. But the thing is with me is, you know, as a Christian, I noticed those things a lot quicker. I noticed them happening and I repent quicker. Before I was, I would never repent from it. I would say a wrong word or I would harm somebody and never think twice about it. Now, when I do that, I notice it quicker. I still have the sin in me, but I repent from it. I’m not going to be habitual sinner. Try to break that chain and move forward. Verse nine says, then one of the seven angels who had seven bowls for seven last plays came and spoke of me saying, come here. I will show you the bride, the wife of the land. See, when we look a t the New Jerusalem, then from the past, at the beginning of the millennium, one of these angels who have poured out the vial or bowl judgments that appears, which we studied in chapter 15. The angel was shown, was to show the lamb’s bride and now called the lamb’s wife. There was a bride, now we’re the lamb’s wife. And New Jerusalem is likened to a bride because the redeemed are forever united to God in the land. At this point, the marriage has taken place in verse revelation. Nineteen seven. It is now the lamb’s wife. Verse 10, our last verse of the day. They said he carried away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The great holy city is Jerusalem. The lamb’s wife is described in that new city of Jerusalem. This is where the bride of Christ, the church will live now forever. The most dominant characteristic of that holy city is the presence of God’s glory, which personifies God’s presence
with his people. The glory departed the old Jerusalem, which we see in Ezekiel chapters eight through 11 is restored now to the new Jerusalem. And John got John’s incredible vision began when the angel carried him away in the spirit in Revelation one, where he received the visions that make up the book of revelations, which
we’ve been studying. And John’s visions weren’t a dream, but they were spiritual realities from John’s view atop a great high mountain. He repeats his observations in verse two that the new Jerusalem came down from heaven, from God, emphasizing its divine origin. And now it’s being situated in the city, in the center of the new heaven and the new earth. See, when we look at chapter 21, it introduces the eternal future planned by God. We are getting to see what God has planned for us.
It’s the ultimate purpose of God for the human race, the new heaven and the new earth salvation. Not much space in scripture is given to this eternal state, but enough is revealed to assure every believer and to assure every believer’s heart about the future. Revelations chapter 21 and 22 provides more details of this state that can be found anywhere else in the Bible. There’s seven new things that we’ll see here revealed in these two chapters that introduced us into the eternal future. God was prepared for us. We’ve already seen in verse 21, one, there’s a new heaven, and we see there’s a new earth in 21. Jerusalem in 21 to a new things in 21, five, a new paradise in 22, one through five, a new place for God’s throne that we’ll see in chapter 22 and a new source of light that we’ll see in verse 20, 25, 25. When this city comes down to the earth, it would be a people filled city. People on their resurrected bodies after the millennium prepared to dwell with Christ for eternity. And that is why the city, which surpasses the splendor of anything that we can actually comprehend is called the bride, the lamb’s wife. It’s shown with the glory of God. The city is the crowning feature of the creation of God. The unique habit habitation for the redeemed in eternity and heaven on earth. The last chapter of Revelation contains a final description of that heaven, like her, that God has prepared for those who love them. It also contains a final challenge of a loving savior who came into the world to die for the sins.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.