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He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more. Neither will there be mourning, or crying, or pain any more for the former things that passed away. Amen to that. Good evening and welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley of Wynton Baptist Church.
Good to be with you guys this evening. As I am filming this, I just got done working at our new SOG gym, our new SOG MMA gym. We're working on it. We're almost done. We're supposed to be done with it by Memorial Day.
Hannah Wisner is in charge of it. She's our head coach at the SOG gym, and she's also in charge of building the new one. I was over there helping, or trying to be of some help with them. My apologies for my appearance, but that's what I was just doing.
I just came over here and was going to talk to you guys about Revelation chapter 21. We're almost done with this book, and about to keep it going. For those of you who don't know, we do have an MMA ministry at this church.
It makes martial arts. Our whole original idea was to fight for the mic. When you win an amateur MMA in Memphis, when you win—I've done it, I did it for years with some pretty good success—you get to speak on the microphone.
We always use that to proclaim the name of Jesus, and not just in that instance, but also in how we carry ourselves different from maybe others. That's kind of the whole idea behind it, and also a training and discipleship opportunity, a ministry opportunity in the lives of those of our fighters who we're training.
But the gym is also going to be for all the members of our church, so we're working on building it now. I was over there cutting two by four and getting in the way, basically. Without further ado, Revelation chapter 21, let's see how far we get, shall we?
Let's start reading. Revelation chapter 21, starting in verse 1, John speaking. Remember, this is after the millennial reign, well, obviously after the second coming, after the millennial reign, after Satan's final defeat, after the resurrection of the dead, the great white throne, all of that.
All that's done. Chapter 21, verse 1. The death will be no more, neither will there be mourning, or crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Amen to that. Verse 5. 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. Alpha and Omega was used in Revelation chapter 1, verse 8 also.
God speaking. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have his heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the testable, murderers, sexual immorals, sorcerers, adulterers, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Guys remember. And you know, as far as guilt for any of those individual sins, I'm sure every one of us got nailed in the forehead with at least one, if not more than one of those sins. But if you are in Christ, it is no longer your identity.
That sin has been imputed on him. It's been imputed on him, charged to his account, his righteousness charged to yours. So that though you've committed these things in the past, it's not your identity any longer.
Verse 9. Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues. We've gone over that chapter 16 and spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.
Remember the marriage ceremony from chapter 19. Verse 10. He carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
It's radiant like a most rare jewel, like a Jasper clear as crystal and a great high wall and 12 gates. I have the gates, 12 angels and on the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of the son of Israel who were inscribed.
Remember Jacob. Okay. His name was Israel. Okay. And, uh, his name was changed to Israel and he had 12 sons and that's where we get the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay. Um, on the east three gates, on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, on the west three gates, and the wall of the city had 12 foundations and on the name of them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the lamb.
So again, just like with the 24 elders, we have the 12 tribes of Israel represented and the 12 apostles. Now, uh, some of you may be thinking, and rightly so, let's count, shall we? What we had the original 12 and then in the book of Acts after Judas dies, the disciples select Matthias or Matthias.
And also we have the apostle Paul. Well, that's 14. So how did we get here to 12? Okay. Couple schools of thought. First up, Judas was cut off when he killed himself. Even the book of Acts says, and the 11th, so he was cut off.
So we had the original 12 minus one. Now we have 11. Now two schools of thought. One is that, uh, Matthias or Matthias was never supposed to be the 12th apostle. It was always supposed to be Paul and the apostles jumped the gun.
Even though they cast lots and prayed on the Lord, doesn't mean they waited on the Lord to make his decision. Option number two is Matthias does count as 12 and Paul is separate because he was simply a, an apostle to the Gentiles, not one of the original 12.
No matter how you look at it, I think it literally means only 12. So whether or not Paul is included in that, it's up for debate. For me, I think Matthias was not really supposed to be the 12th one. It was always supposed to be Paul.
Take that for what it's worth. Verse 15. And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure a city and its gates and walls. The city lies four square, its length the same as its width, and the city measured its rod 1 ,200 stadia, about 1 ,380 miles.
This city is almost 1 ,400 miles wide and 1 ,400 miles long. This is a huge city. The, um, the wall is 144 cubits is roughly, I think, like 220 feet wide. That's how thick this wall is. Um, the wall is built of jasper while the city was pure gold, clear glass, glass.
The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, second, and so on and so forth. Um, verse 22. This is cool. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.
And the city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light the nations will 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, and nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does mean detestable and false work, but only those whose name is written in the Lamb's book of life.
And again, we speak of the Lamb's book of life. Remember, Revelation 13a has been repeated over and over and over again in the book of Revelation. These are the names of the redeemed, the elect, the saved, the children of God, those who God chose before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight, so on and so forth.
Christians. And it worked their way into that book. God, by grace, inscribed them into that book. Um, it is always interesting to me. I, um, sometimes go on, uh, some websites, some atheistic websites to find really difficult questions of the Bible to answer.
And, uh, there's, there's one called a hundred questions no Christian can answer. And you go on there and most of the questions are incredibly lame. They're not even well thought out. They're not even difficult.
And I don't mean that in an arrogant sense, just because they're not well thought out questions. And every now and then you come across some questions that are like, you know what, that is a worthwhile question and I need to find an answer to it.
A few years ago, um, someone brought up a question that I guess this has been a long time. Maybe it's been 10 years or so. Um, Hey, Josiah, uh, it says, God said, let there be light. And there was light in Genesis chapter one, right?
I'm like, yeah. Well then the sun, moon, and stars aren't created until day three or maybe it's day four. So how was there light without the sun? And I was like, uh, I studied for a week or so. And I found the answer.
It's interesting. Use scripture to interpret scripture. The question from the first chapter of the Bible is found in the second to last chapter of the Bible. Chapter 21, verse 23. The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives its light and its lamp is the lamb.
Guys, in case you just missed that. The city is lit up by the glory of God. It has no need for the sun. When God said, let there be light, it wasn't from the sun. He was making his glory visible to those he was about to create.
How incredible is that? The light illuminated from him. He said, let there be light. It wasn't from the sun. Glory is often associated with light. Let your light, Matthew chapter five, let your light so shine before men.
They can see your good works and glorify the father, which is in heaven. Glory is the outward manifestation of who God is. His holiness is who he is. The glory is the outward manifestation of that. When we say we're glorifying God, that means we are outwardly manifesting who and what he is.
That's what glory is, is the outward manifestation of who God is. God's glory shown through light is showing who and what he is. The light created in Genesis one was making visible to a degree who and what God is to those he was about to create.
His glory will light up New Jerusalem. I want to point out one more thing here. Right now, there are loved ones that are in heaven. They do not have bodies. They are in paradise, I understand all that, but they don't have bodies.
But at the end of all things, at the end of the millennium, at the resurrection of the dead, remember, their glorified bodies will be reunited with their spirits. The eternal state, ladies and gentlemen, will not be bodiless spirits.
It will be glorified bodies. And yet, flesh and blood won't be inheriting the kingdom of heaven. I understand that. But these glorified bodies will be different. How will they be different? I don't know.
I just know they'll be different in a moment, in the blink of an eye. The eternal state will include bodies. It's going to be pretty sweet. Pretty sweet. That's all I see here. Pretty awesome stuff. No tears.
No death. No mourning. No crying. No pain. Former things have passed away. Pretty beautiful, isn't it? There's Revelation 21 in a nutshell. Okay. Next week will be the last one. Chapter 22. Look forward to it, guys.
Love you guys very much. I hope this was somewhat beneficial to you. As always, if you have any questions, put them in the comment section or send them to me directly. One more week of Revelation. We start something new.
Thank you guys for sticking with it to this point.
