I invite you to turn to Revelation chapter
21.
I don't know what the Lord's intention is.
I've been reading the text over and over
and I can't get away from it.
No flash of revelation has come or unusual
understanding.
It almost does not require commentary.
It's so graphic in itself.
But maybe it's just a washing of the
words that the Lord wants.
It's just the text read that we should
be reminded of what the climax of the
age is.
And that we're even told that there's a
blessing in the reading of the prophecy of
this book.
Isn't that remarkable?
It's the only book in the scripture that
has that statement.
That there's a particular blessing merely for the
reading.
So if the Lord doesn't give us anything
more than the reading, we're blessed already.
So chapter 21 of Revelation.
I have an italics over that.
The new heaven and the new earth.
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, the new
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her bridegroom.
And I heard a loud voice from the
throne saying, See, the tabernacle of God is
among men.
He will dwell with them.
And they will be his people.
And God himself will be with them.
He will wipe away every tear from their
eyes.
Death will be no more.
Mourning and crying and pain will be no
more.
For the first things have passed away.
And the one who was seated on the
throne said, See, I am making all things
new.
Also he said, Write this.
For these things are trustworthy and true.
Then 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 water as
a gift from the spring of the water
of life.
Those who conquer will inherit these things.
And I will be their God.
And they will be my people, my sons,
my children.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the
polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the
idolaters, and all liars, their place will be
in the lake that burns with fire and
sulfur, which is the second death.
Then 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 in the spirit he carried me away
to a great high mountain and showed me
the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God.
It has the glory of God and a
radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper,
clear as crystal.
It has a great high wall with twelve
gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and
on the gates are inscribed the names of
the twelve tribes of the Israelites, on the
east three gates, on the north three gates,
on the south three gates, and on the
west three gates, and the wall of the
city has twelve foundations, and on them are
the twelve names of the twelve apostles of
the Lamb.
The Lord never tires of the number twelve.
The angel who talked to me had a
measuring rod of gold to measure the city
and its gates and walls, and the city
lies four square, its length the same as
its width, and he measured the city with
its rod, fifteen hundred miles or twelve hundred
furlongs, so the number twelve is again registered.
He also measured its wall, one hundred and
forty-four cubits, twelve times twelve.
By human measurement, which the angel was using,
the wall is built of jasper, while the
city is pure gold, clear as glass.
The foundations of the wall of the city
are adorned with every jewel, the first was
jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the
fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian,
the seventh crystalite, the eighth beryl, the ninth
topaz, the tenth chrysoplas, the ninth topaz, the
eleventh jasping, the twelfth amethyst.
And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each
of the gates is a single pearl, and
the street of the city is pure gold,
transparent as 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 is its light, and its
lamp is the Lamb.
The nations will walk by its light, and
the kings of the earth will bring their
glory into it.
Its gates will never be shut by day,
there will be no night there, people will
come into it, the glory and the honor
of the nation will bring into it the
glory and the honor of the nations.
But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone
who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those
who are written in the Lamb's book of
life.
Then the angel showed me the river of
the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing
from the throne of God and of the
Lamb, through the middle of the street of
the city.
On either side of the river is the
tree of life, with its twelve kinds of
fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the
leaves of the tree are for the healing
of the nations.
Nothing accursed will be found there anymore, but
the throne of God and of the Lamb
will be in it, and his servants will
worship him.
They will see his face, and his name
will be on their foreheads, and there will
be no more night, they need no light
of lamp or sun, for the Lord God
will be their light, and they will reign
forever and ever.
And he said to me, these words are
trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God
of the spirits of the prophets, has sent
his angel to show his servants what must
soon take place.
See, I am coming soon.
Blessed is the one who keeps the words
of the prophecy of this book.
Let's go back over that.
You're invited to enter these waters.
Anything that is ignited for you, or illumined
for you, or quickened, any thought that comes,
any question that is raised, I think the
Lord wants us to corporately extract from this
the unlimited riches.
Probably one of the most symbolic chapters in
all scripture, and the scholars debate how symbolic
and how literal.
So, another has said that what God has
reserved in this climax of the age is
of such a kind that there's no way
to communicate it to mortals on this side
of that reality, except in these symbolic terms.
What do you think of the description of
what's coming down from above as a bride?
Somehow I had the thought there's a creation
of man and woman at the beginning, there's
the mystery of the church as being the
same mystery as marriage, and the age ends
with a marriage.
Actually, a marriage of what is in heaven
with a marriage with what is on earth.
It's as if one is coming down over
the other, and I don't know how to
say this in a decorous and polite way,
but I almost imagine an act of intimacy,
the one coming down over the other, and
the one who's receiving what is coming down
is not some begrudging and compliant spouse who
has to suffer this, but a joyous, long
-awaited coming together of what is heavenly and
earthly, and once they come down and into
and one another, you can't tell where the
one ends and the other begins.
They have become one new thing, and in
that one new thing, they abide and remain
eternally.
That's the consummation of the age.
That bride is somehow brought down from heaven
by God, but we know that its formation
was originally in the earth.
How else can it be adorned?
The streets of that city, which is yet
a description of the bride, is pure as
crystal and as transparent gold, and that's what
makes it adorned for the bridegroom.
It has the same purity and holiness.
It's called the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
It's holy.
There's nothing unclean there.
There's no lie.
There's nothing to disparage, discredit, or insinuate even
a shadow of anything contrary to the character
of the God who will abide there eternally
as his dwelling.
Can you picture that?
If you can picture that, you'll suffer that.
You'll be willing for whatever intensive dealing of
God is needful to rid us of our
shadows, of the things that lie in the
realm of things questionable, the liberties we take
in speech, the inadvertent things we say, the
questionable quality of our motives, even when we
invoke the name of the Lord, as is
so much the character of our present Christianity,
everything in the name of the Lord, but
so much of it is for the vain
glory and the ambition of men in ministries
and their institutions, not a scintilla of that
will exist in that thing.
God will have purified that bride.
She's adorned for the bridegroom.
She has his character and his holiness, and
the streets of that city are as pure
gold.
I served an apprenticeship in the jewelry industry
in New York City as a kid, and
I remember the smelting of gold and how
painstaking.
There's 14 carat, there's 24 carat, having to
do with the purity of that metal, but
imagine a gold so refined that you can
see through it.
I can't imagine this, that everything that is
contrary to its essential nature has been removed,
and now it is translucent, and the city
is paved, its streets are paved with translucent
gold.
The word impeccable is not even appropriate in
the context of what God is describing, but
it's important for us to see it.
Why is it given?
Why couldn't it have waited for the consummation
itself?
Why are we told to read it?
That as many as read this prophecy are
blessed, because God wants us to have a
sense of the end, even from the beginning.
We need to know that toward which we
are tending, and we started in Genesis with
the God who created.
He gave a tree, he gave a river
that watered the garden, and we come to
the very end of the book, and there
are the same great symbols again, only this
time unclouded and brought to their full expression,
bearing fruit every month, another fruit every month.
How prolific, profuse, prolific God is in his
creativity.
The only thing that stunts him now is
us.
If he were given full and free sway
through a body that was in union with
him, with every impediment removed, we would see
the prolific God now in measure, but then
we'll see him in full, and the tree
of life is the statement of himself.
It is prolific giving forth of fruit, and
the variableness of it in every month, and
the leaves of that tree somehow for the
healing of the nations.
I can only imagine what kind of healing
they will need when we know the history
of Rwanda, and our brother's country, the tribal
warfares, and the genocide, and Serbia, and the
things that have disgraced our generation from World
War I to this moment, where rape has
become now a legitimate instrument of warfare.
You humiliate the enemy by raping his women
from the age of 10 and up.
It doesn't matter.
The earth is disgraced.
The nations are polluted and corrupted, and those
women, particularly those who have come out of
an Islamic background, can't even show themselves to
their own families.
They're not even admitted into the society.
Far from a compassion that they so desperately
need, having been so victimized and ravaged, the
disgrace and the shame of rape is a
stigma that they bear with them until their
death.
Day and night, their lives have been permanently
marred and scarred.
That comes into the history of their nation.
Their nation has been disgraced by such abuses,
and we can go on, and the Lord
knows we're only touching the periphery of the
multitudinous abuses that have been heaped upon nations,
and that nations themselves have produced and incurred
in their own sinfulness in these last days,
and it'll get worse before it gets better.
So I think that this is somehow implied
in the healing of the nations.
It's not going to be done in a
day that somehow, through the millennia, through the
millennium, and into eternity of eternities, that tree
will bring not only fruit, but healing.
And only that tree can bring it.
Verse 4, he will wipe, oh, every tear
from their eyes.
Death will be no more.
Mourning and crying and pain will be no
more for the first things that passed away.
Seems to indicate, right to the very end
of the age, right to the very threshold
of this consummation, the experience of the saints
invokes tears, suffering, pain, and the tasting of
death.
And maybe that's the necessary experience that goes
into the refining and brings forth the bride
that's adorned.
But once the Lord is established in his
glory and his bride established and the communion,
the joining of heaven and earth takes place,
it's the end of suffering, pain, death, and
tears.
But until that, we can expect maybe especially
in the last fury of those things which
oppose this consummation, this will be the distinctive
experience of saints, a mourning, a sighing, a
suffering, a tears, and the kinds of things
for which only God can bring consolation.
And maybe the aged saints like Simeon and
Anna, who were waiting for the consolation of
Israel, had this kind of consolation in mind.
They knew that there's a long history of
death, of suffering, of tears in Israel, and
it's not the end.
It'll be until the end.
But when the end comes, it's over once
and for all.
But we need to contemplate that end because
it's the contemplation and the assurance of that
end that enables us to bravely endure the
sorrows and the sufferings that bring tears.
We're not naive.
We know that this is going to be
contested until the bitter end.
If there's anything the powers of darkness could
do to prevent this once and for all
consummation that ends all history and establishes eternally
this glory, they will seek to do it.
And the saints will be the object of
their great fury, knowing that their time is
short.
So expect tears, expect pain, expect sorrow, expect
painful disappointment, expect even the kind of gentle
reprimand that has come today.
That somehow, even in our best and well
-meaning intentions, we make ourselves candidates for a
kind of thing that will bring us sorrow
or remiss.
But that's a necessary thing, and the end
of it is translucence, transparency, clarity of such
a kind as has never been known in
the church, that has been muddied, corrupted, disfigured,
tainted by all of the subtleties of thought,
of ambition, of rivalry, of jealousy, of fear,
of how about this guy, what will this
man do?
All these kinds of things that God has
got to work out, like a great metallurgist
to remove the impurities from the precious metal,
that it will be brought to a place
of transparency forever, that even the streets of
that city are paved with it.
Can you imagine walking on such a thing?
Hallelujah.
Okay.
I'm making all things new.
It is done.
I'm the Alpha and the Omega.
The creator, the one that was at the
beginning, is also at the end.
And to the thirsty, I'll give water as
a gift from the spring of the water
of life.
Those who conquer will inherit these things.
Those who overcome, these trials, these perfecting trials,
that probably the enemy, unbeknownst to himself, is
providing the very ingredient that obtains this perfection.
We would not have come to it except
through the press of oppression, last days persecution,
and the great struggles that are even internal
within the church.
Obtain the thing that will glorify God forever
and will be appropriate to him, adorned for
the bridegroom, has got to be in keeping
with the character and nature of the bridegroom
himself.
What a remarkable thing, remembering that it goes
back to the time when he took us
off to Dunkeep.
That's where we were found and made us
to sit with the princess of his people.
At the end of that great process is
a bride adorned for the bridegroom.
I will be their God, they will be
my people is the whole foundation of what
covenant is.
This is the covenant.
This is what was breathed to Abraham and
reiterated to Moses and to David and to
every expression of covenant right through to the
end.
The foundation of it is this.
I will be their God, they will be
my people.
The eternal consummation is the fulfillment of the
covenant that God is God to his people.
I don't know if the Lord will allow
me, but I'm reading Spurgeon on what that
means when God will be God to a
people.
What does that mean?
What benefit will that bring?
How will that redound to us as blessing
when God will be to us a God?
All of his lavish and prolific generosity of
heart and mercy and love and wisdom, he
will be to us in full, that God
eternally.
Who can weigh that?
Who can measure that?
Who has contemplated that?
We're only receiving in measure now and in
part the mercies of God, but then there'll
be no hindrance.
He will be to us as God.
What he is in himself lavishly and continuously
poured out will be bathed in that Godship.
We will be his people.
This is the consummation of the age.
We can only feel for this, try to
approximate what these remarkable symbolic statements mean, but
we would do ourselves a disservice to ignore
them.
And then this jab in verse 8, in
the midst of this beautiful statement of what
this eternal future holds, a reminder that there
are those who are prohibited.
They'll have no place in it.
They've condescended too long.
They refused the redemptive appeals of God like
Cain.
And they're cowardly and unbelieving, polluted, murderers, either
in deed or in thought, being angry with
their brothers and insisting on retaining that anger
and heeding the word of God that sin
is at the door.
Fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.
All that is unbecoming to God.
All that is contrary to his holiness cannot
find entry.
Their place will be in the lake that
burns with fire and silver, which is the
second death.
And the commentators say, why should we discredit
this stringent and painful reminder of the fate
of those who have not entered into the
kingdom?
It has to be as credible to us
as the glory of what is described for
those who are faithful and believing.
If we accept the one of the glory
that is before God's people, whose tears are
wiped away by his own hand, we have
to equally receive this stringent reminder that God
forbids the entry of people of this description.
Maybe the benefit in our reading it is
that we ourselves will contend with them while
there's yet breath, while there's yet hope, that
they might forsake the lie, that they might
forsake their pollutions and their corruptions and their
defilements, where there's an eternal consequence that will
forbid them entry, and they'll have to have
their part in the lake of fire that
is without remedy, an eternal anguish of burning.
You know, even if it's not a literal
fire, if it's the burning of embarrassment and
shame, have you ever experienced that, where your
face washes, you've said something stupid, you've been
caught in the act in something stupid and
sinful, and you blush, and you feel the
redness coming up your neck and into your
face, it's the most uncomfortable thing that I
can imagine.
I don't even want to imagine, but imagine
this, that that burning sensation that is so
prickly and uncomfortable would be the permanent condition
of those who have forfeited the atonement of
God.
They have to live in that burning humiliation
and shame forever.
If the fire of that lake is no
more than that, it's everything to be avoided
by whatever means.
That we should press upon men that God
has an escape and an alternative, if it's
no more than that.
But if it's more than that, the imagination
can't even conceive it.
Really, the projection of a kind of human
superiority over God, that we are more moral
than he, and we would not allow an
eternal punishment, so therefore how can he?
We have to find ways to excuse him
that the word doesn't mean what it says.
How much of our tears and mourning and
sorrow that God himself has got to wipe
away and comfort us has come at the
hands of these unregenerate and fastened sin people
who will not change and will ventilate their
last spite upon us and we will bear
it, yet in hope that somehow something might
turn for them.
But we can believe that when this end
comes every grace has been given to men
that they need not be excluded from the
unspeakable joy of this kingdom.
That everything will have its full opportunity to
find its way into one end or the
other radically.
Be the saints who have been purified by
God and adorned for the bridegroom or the
unbelieving and the liars and the fornicators who
have insisted in retaining their sin right to
the end.
Nothing will be made to God's account that
men were not given opportunity right till the
consummation of the age to come in to
the precious atonement of God and be washed
in that blood from all the heinous sins
and be as acceptable in the last moment
as those saints who have persevered all their
life long.
That those who have worked all the day
will not receive more than him who has
come into the harvest at the last moment.
So great is the grace and mercy of
God that no man will offer a reprimand
that somehow he has not given the widest
opportunity for all men to come and inherit
this eternal kingdom.
The wicked in the Psalms are often hinted
at as not being the chronically unregenerate but
as those who once knew God and have
forsaken the faith and turned against the believing
with a greater vehemence and bitterness once having
shared that faith.
Can you imagine the eternal lament and shriek
of horror by those who have once known
the faith and spurned it?
It is yet a greater calamity eternally than
those who have been all the while regenerate.
The wicked is a special category.
Wickedness implies knowing better but yet refusing to
act rightly.
Even with this there are cities who will
walk in the light of this kingdom.
Nations will walk in the light of this
kingdom.
It doesn't mean that they are in it
but that they exist nationally.
They still continue.
Their kings will bring the glory of their
riches into it and they walk by the
light of it though they are not in
it.
So the issue of the light of this
kingdom which is the righteousness of God and
the righteousness of this king very much depends
on the severity and lightness of his justice
and his judgments or they would not be
light.
So every reason why this is the judgment
of God however severe needs to be very
clearly established.
Now what do you make of this in
verse 9 that the one who bids the
apostle to come and see the bride of
the lamb and brings him up to the
high mountain and shows him the holy city
Jerusalem coming down from heaven that has the
glory of God and the radiance like a
very rare jewel like jasper clear as crystal
is the same angel who had the seven
bowls full of the seven last flakes.
I've never noticed that before but why are
we told that?
Is God short of angels?
And he had to press this one into
service though he had already performed a very
vital function or is there some conjunction between
the angel that is used to minister the
judgments of God is the same one that
has the privilege of calling the apostle up
to the high mountain apart to view this
holy city.
Is that some kind of recompense for the
faithful angel who has had to do the
painful thing and has not withheld himself.
Now okay, here's my acknowledgement and reward.
Now call my apostle John and bring him
up to the mountain and let him glimpse
even while he is yet in his frame
and yet breathing this glorious conclusion of the
age that I have not seen and you
have not heard.
I'm giving you the privilege of bringing him
up and seeing with him that glorious visage.
You know what that would say to me?
You're called to do prophetic things and to
speak hard words in the last days and
men will put their fingers in their ears
and mash upon you with their teeth.
Be faithful to bring the words of judgment
and the warning of judgment because in your
faithfulness is a reward reserved for those who
are faithful not to withhold and is not
given to another.
Seeing that which is invisible and eternal, Paul
accounted his present sufferings as momentary in life.
He was so suffused with this end that
it affected the way he would see his
present trials and that's God's normative intention for
every saint and the history of martyrdom is
marked with men who have bravely gone to
the stake and had the flesh rent from
their bones or sawed asunder rejoicing because by
the eye of the spirit like Stephen he
saw the heavens opened and the glory of
God and Jesus at the right hand of
the Father and was so suffused with that
glory and that image that he did not
even feel the stones that were thumping on
his flesh and breaking his nose bones and
coming and gouging his eye and the blood
running down his face he only saw the
glory of God and the eternal thing that
will be enduring and the Lord even up
on his feet to receive him.
We've got to see this that's why it's
in the book that's why we're blessed to
read it because upon us will come those
things that will bring tears, will bring sorrow
will bring suffering but we can foresee and
be brave even those of us who are
suffering now, inexplicable things, marriage is going to
pot overnight and I have to repeat myself,
how shall we become translucent and transparent and
as crystal and as gold except by such
a process?
There's no other way that such a refinement
could be obtained and it says that this
holy city coming down out of heaven from
God has the glory of God and the
radiance like a very rigid crystal coming down
from heaven is that a geographical description?
Is it north of the earth?
Is it literally, physically above or is there
another way to understand what is implied in
coming down from heaven or what has been
obtained in heaven?
This process of purification and translucence is not
some magical dimension but the very grit of
where we are in this earth in the
fellowship of the saints and in obedience to
God and in the call of God and
the various things for which we're summoned that's
heaven.
Remember when I had malaria my first day
in Tanzania with a fever beside myself on
the bed, incapable of praying for myself, ready
to perish and here's the brother pacing back
and forth, he sends them out by twos
crying out to God, Lord he said we're
not in Egypt we're in heaven because these
diseases shall not come upon us, we are
not in Egypt, we are in the service
of God and in the place of duty
and of call and of obedience.
So I'm just suggesting I'm talking off the
top of my head that this issue of
coming down from heaven, however beautiful an image
it is and in fact literally may well
be fulfilled the heaven in which these saints
are purified and adorned for the bridegroom is
here in our very earth but it's not
earthly, it's heavenly, it's the body of Christ
it's the church, it's the place of obedience,
it's the place of relationship that we have
not shunned, it's the willingness to hear a
mild rebuke and bear it and receive it
and say yes Lord I don't even witness,
I don't even know I thought I was
being obedient, I had something to say that
seems to fit in, but I've been chastised
for it and I receive it Lord you
explain to me later but that very willingness
has done more for that saint than the
thing that the saint thought to bring as
blessing you see that?
The process of God, he's a metallurgist of
an ultimate kind and he only knows how
to perfect the saints what is the subtlety
of our souls what is mixed in with
our desire to bless and to bring what
we think will be an encouraging word that
is tinged by our own ambition yet or
a desire to be heard or to be
recognized, I'm not saying this is the case,
but how often is it the case, if
not invariably the case, as we are where
we are in the process of God being
brought to the place where we are adorned
as a bride for the bridegroom there's no
shortcut we don't know the subtlety of our
hearts we don't know what it hankers for
and what recognition it craves to receive not
carnally, but spiritually and until the subtlety of
those motives are removed God cannot be all
in all and only he can identify them
and bring the corrective by which we are
purified by even that kind of subtlety.
Talk about manipulation in the church talk about
the manipulation of ministers and orthocles, talk about
the use of music to affect a certain
kind of soul response that will gratify the
evangelist.
Manipulation is the name of the game in
present day Christendom and nobody faults those who
practice it I have to tell musicians shut
up God doesn't need your mood music, he's
well able to convict and bring by his
spirit to the altar who he will.
I don't want your access to excuse me
there's a purity that God is wanting thank
you Lord so in our own fellowship I
hear the announcement I'm going to be doing
this this and this God has told me
already oh I wasn't consulted I'm the elder
you're going to take this leave of absence
as if it's already a fact and what
are you saying when you say God told
me that means this is not to be
questioned even by you how we will employ
God that's taking the Lord's name in vain
even if God did tell you you do
not publicly express that as a manipulation to
bring the man into a place of agreement
you see what I mean that's what we
do saints these are our impurities we're shot
through with things like that I'm guilty of
it myself and so God is going to
have a city made of gold that is
appropriate to him and it has got to
be pure through and through and you know
how that purity is going to be obtained
that person who was manipulative has got to
be confronted and say look this is what
you did you may not have been conscious
of it but when you say the Lord
told me what you're really doing is using
the Lord as a lever to bring an
agreement that will justify you enjoying what you
have determined already to do without the consultation
of the body or its leadership you need
to be confronted it's going to be painful,
I shrink from it but unless we do
it however painful how is the body going
to come to that purity for which it
is fitted for the bridegroom he is absolutely
pure, he is holy holy, holy there's not
a scintilla of anything of a motive for
himself that was in his earthly service or
in his eternal place and he will not
reign in the earth he will not have
dominion over creation until there's a bride for
the bridegroom God gave to Adam and to
Eve, he gave to them dominion over creation
and until the Lord has a partner, until
he has a bride, until he has a
co-regent, he cannot rule and reign and
the whole thing of what we are about
is the preparation of that bride and where
is it done, it's done in heaven in
La Porte Minnesota, in the woods in the
morning prayer meeting, in the confrontation with the
saints in the Sunday morning assembly in something
that takes place as an episode that the
Lord may well have provoked and you may
well have been obedient to the Lord in
reading what he gave you through the night
hours and sharing what you shared not so
much to serve the purpose that you thought,
but to serve a greater purpose your own
purification and those of us who are witness
to it because we are with you in
that we do very much the same out
of our best and well meaning intentions, we
don't know as we ought to, and this
is how God purifies, and praise God for
a mother who will call us to task
now we have the choice of being resentful
or being grateful and in that choice is
the purity of God obtained Amen Oh the
depth of the riches both of us have
the knowledge of that how great is our
God and he can deal with with the
raw material just the interaction of the saints
themselves is the very purifying device of God
but this is the end of it and
we're willing for whatever whatever the sting, whatever
the rebuke whatever the embarrassment whatever the reproach
whatever the, we're willing but he will have
a bride and we will be that bride
the city from the Lord you know this
city is four square it's perfectly squared up
there's no bulges, there's no misshapenness someone said
about me once well what you see is
what you get I thought are they rebuking
me or complimenting me laughter laughter laughter what
you see is what you get he's square
all around take it or leave it, that's
it laughter I love this city because to
the dimensions of God it's four square it's
144,000 it's 12 times 12 times 12
times 12 times 12 12 gates, 12 this,
12 that 12, 12, 12 I don't know
what that number 12 is if someone can
find out I know it's the number of
what is apostolic but what is apostolic there's
something about 12, the 12 tribes of Israel,
Elijah rebuilt the altar that had been torn
down he took 12 stones, there would have
been no sacrifice, no fire, but for the
12 the 12, the 12 so let that
sink in and kindle something in your heart
of an admiring respect for that number and
that the city is four square 12 furlongs
it's length, it's height, it's width wow the
word government has suffered such abuse in our
generation that immediately when the word is sounded
we think of something self-aggrandizing politicians back
rooms, smoke-filled rooms conniving hokum rallies, conventions
balloons popping, all of that junk for men
for their ego trips but we need to
take the word afresh in the divine context
because we are called to rule and to
reign and it's in this very text in
verse 5, and they will reign forever and
ever this bride is not going to sit
on her thumbs, this bride has a task
with her husband to rule and reign over
creation, but what does that ruling mean?
It's not self-aggrandizing it's not bureaucracy, it's
not shuffling papers, but it's making known the
wisdom of God to the nations on how
to live rightly what is righteousness itself?
By a people who will not have academically
come to the definition, but in whom it
has been wrought in their life and in
their walk and in their service and relationship
with one another and before God then we
can rule and reign we can convey the
authenticity of what we have obtained in the
house of God, in heaven where he has
formed us and now communicate that to the
nations that are still outside this heavenly city
but are enjoying its light.
Ruling and reigning is making God known as
he is and his way, and that's why
we're serving the remarkable apprenticeship that we are
because we have such a destiny forever many
of us right now can't even rule our
way out of a paper bag generally speaking
in the condition of the church, children do
dominate our homes, they're running riot, there is
a lot of loose things that betray the
government of God even under our own roofs
so this is our our school these are
our testing the issues of government in the
church where the reluctant elder who doesn't want
to have to bring rebuke or reproach or
correction has every temptation to let the thing
slide, so let that person do what they
want, what's the harm of it we'll have
missed the occasion that God himself has given
both for the elder in government as well
as the one receiving the correction how shall
we rule and reign if we forsake the
occasions now to learn to bring righteous judgment
and equity in the domains where we have
a measure of responsibility not to ring the
cell to the last drop but not to
leave something untouched that deserves some examination is
the privilege of these saints to look upon
his face when prior to this time throughout
the whole of biblical history to see the
face of God was to die how is
it now this privilege is extended and extended
eternally they shall see his face, they shall
have the father's name in their forehead one
of the things is that death is no
more there's no capacity for death being brought
but I don't think that's the reason why
they can now look upon his face what
that will mean what that kind of revelation
brings of course the face is the signature
of the personality when you wear it that
long what you are, how you've conducted yourself
your secret thoughts have their expression in your
visage what then is in God's expression and
in his face that the saints now who
have been purified are able to look upon
it is an unspeakable privilege and one that
we need to anticipate, now we see in
part only, then we shall see in full
and how about walking in the light that
this city has no need of the sun
and the moon not that they don't exist
but we have no need of that light
because he is the light of it and
nations shall walk in the light of that
city how many will be able to endure
that light and count it as a blessing
are only in proportion to those who in
this life have been willing and desired to
walk in the light as he is in
the light this is the light by which
this eternal city is going to be lighted
how are we doing now what is our
propensity now what is our desire now for
that light if that light will illumine that
city eternally with no need for sun and
moon what is the brilliance of that light
that is going to reveal the transparency of
those streets and the gems that make up
its walls and the whole city is going
to be bathed in that light who can
take it it's a mercy from God to
cast people into an outer darkness who have
not been fitted for that light and shrink
even from a measure of it in this
life and prefer darkness and the lie to
truth and unveiling so what shall I say
welcome the light walk in the light as
he is in the light whatever that means
if we've got to examine what it means
to ask the brother to take the baby
out if we have to examine the reprimand
of having missed the Lord in our well
-meaning intention light more light light more light
Lord let your light shine because only your
light bathes and brings to awareness those things
that would otherwise not be seen light is
painful before it's glorious to love the light
will be a condition for fitting us to
walk in that light eternally for he is
the light of that city that has no
need of that which is even from what
he has created as the sun and the
moon how are you related to the light
now and what are the issues before us
day in and day out where we can
cry out like the famous German poet Goethe
on his deathbed who thought that the cross
was too harsh and too painful an object
and that it needed to be gilded with
roses he was a humanist a poet, liberal
minded looked upon apostolic faith as being too
stringent, too demanding you know his final words
were on the deathbed light more light too
late it was a cry too late he
had spurned it in his lifetime and now
what he sensed in the final moment of
his life would be denied him, he is
incapacitated for light because he had not consistently
welcomed it in his own lifetime that issue
is before us continually light more light I
dread going into restaurants that are moody where
you have to have a miner's helmet on
to read the menu and they think that
they're doing us a favor, you know why
those places are so murky, cold, atmospheric because
they know that couples are coming who want
to rub knees under the table and speak
little endearments and whisperings in that darkened atmosphere,
darkness is conducive to sin but light, more
light I want to see what I'm eating
I want to look into the face of
those who are at the table with me
do you love the light?
because we need to know that when eternity
sets in and is irrevocable in its character
it's full of the light of God and
we need not to shun it then or
be uncomfortable in it then because we have
spent a lifetime habituating ourselves from coming out
of darkness and into the light and say
even now Lord, light more light open our
understanding, give us to see things as you
see them is this thing of a sword
in our sister in hearing the requirement to
have their baby carried out is that a
spirit response or is that a soul response
very important to make a distinction, lest we
continue to reinforce the realm of soul where
God wants to bring us into the realm
of spirit, are we very susceptible in the
realm of emotion, particularly being women I'm being
very hypothetical, I'm not in any way saying
this is the case, what I'm saying is
it could be the case and we need
to be brave enough to welcome the light
of God to show us the difference between
soul and spirit because we are of a
generation in the church that can't even distinguish
between the one faculty or the other and
think that everything is spirit and therefore almost
everything that they do is soulish light more
light, to see things as God sees them
and to welcome that seeing, however painful a
confrontation it is for us and by such
a means will we be brought from light
to light to light, that when the day
comes that we will be inhabitants of that
city, we will glory in the light and
we'll have been prepared for it.
True church is the welcoming of the light
that comes through the correction, through the operation
of God's spirit, through brothers receiving a correction,
a reproof and so on, that's living in
the light.
One precious thing as we move to a
conclusion to consider that in the end there's
not two trees as there were in the
beginning, but only one.
Only the tree of life.
Praise God.
Very true, watered by the river of life
whose waters are crystal clear lapping over to
the nations in bounty and so the book
ends more gloriously than so to speak as
it began.
Death has been removed and even the prospect
of death by eating from a wrong tree,
for the wrong tree no longer is there,
only the one tree the tree of life
and that's abundant and prolific.
So these words are trustworthy and true for
the Lord the God of the spirits of
the prophets and I don't know why that's
inserted why God is described in that connection
of all the ways in which he could
be described has sent his angel to show
his servants what must soon take place.
See I am coming soon.
Blessed is the one who keeps the words
of the prophecy of this book.
So thank you Lord for the river of
the water of life right as crystal that
flows from the throne of God that where
the epicenter of government is is the place
of life and flowing out at the end
of the eternity of eternities and even now
in like measure and principle life flows out
from the throne so give us my God
an appreciation of that what that throne is
what authority is even now the life that
issues from authority even when it seems at
first flush to curtail life, help us to
see by your light my God and the
most insidious thing that is contrary to it
in our generation and has always marked the
world is the counterfeit morality, counterfeit ethic counterfeit
kindness counterfeit niceness counterfeit love that obscures and
competes with what is authentically from you.
Precious God light for us to see the
difference light for us to choose the difference
thank you for our precious sister my God
condescending bowing to acknowledging something has come from
a man in authority that whether my own
subjectivity witnesses to it or not I receive
that as being the counsel of God and
the wisdom of God and the government of
God that's life thank you my God we
pray that your life will flow out of
the throne has flowed through this meeting my
God through these days watering us Lord and
we might come into the fullness of what
will glorify you forever thank you for your
work Lord continue we pray to purify us
as you yourself are pure and we thank
you for a love that will not let
us go we thank you for the divine
jealousy that seems to us harsh or judgmental
whatever Lord everything that you do is good
and may you be the doer of our
doing for we cannot trust ourselves only that
which issues from you ever and always now
and always is alone good bless us Lord
and instruct us give us an anticipation for
this consummation and the willingness to welcome from
your hand every discipline every judgment every dealing
that will purify us as you are pure
that will admit greater light that we might
not just abide the light but delight in
the light that illumines your holy city forever
and ever in Yeshua's name we pray