Sunday Night Bible Study - Revelation Part 21 - Chapter 22

Whitten Baptist Church

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We've made it! Last chapter of the book of Revelation. I have very much enjoyed this study, but I am definitely ready to move on.

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It's been a good one. So let's go through this last chapter, do a brief overview, and then see where we're going from here, okay?

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Revelation chapter 22, starting in verse 1. And the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as a crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the

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Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city, on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

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The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the

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Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.

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Night will be no more, they will need no light or lamp or sun, for Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever.

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Alright, let's look at this first part for a little bit. First off, in verse 1 and in verse 3, notice it's one throne of God and the

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Lamb. You know, they will see His face. Guys, remember,

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God has always existed triune, in one essence being but three persons, okay?

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You know, in Isaiah 6, Isaiah says, you know, holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God of hosts or Yahweh of hosts. If you asked Isaiah who he saw, he would say,

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I saw Yahweh. In John chapter 12, John says that Isaiah saw

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Jesus. The reason that's not a contradiction is because Jesus is Yahweh.

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Yahweh the Father, Yahweh the Son, and Yahweh the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Yahweh have always existed triune, and yet there's still one being, one essence.

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We see that exactly here. One throne for God and the Lamb. They will see

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Him, His face. His name will be on their forehead. That reminds me back when we talked about the seal,

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I think it was chapter 12, I could be mistaken, where it was one seal, but it was the name of the

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Father and of the Lamb. I'll have to go back and find that when I can. Okay, very good, moving on.

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What we already saw in chapter 21, there's no need for the sun or the light, for the

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Lord God will be their light and reign forever and ever, so there's no need for the sun.

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This goes back to what we saw before, all the way back in Genesis. God said, let there be light, and then what, four days later,

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He creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. What was the light He created? It wasn't from the sun, it was the eminence of His glory.

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It was the ability to see His glory, see who He is, and that light was

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His glory made visible. Pretty awesome. Let's see, okay, keep reading.

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Verse six, and He said to me, these words are trustworthy and true, and the Lord, the God of the Spirit of Prophets, has sent

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His angel to show His servants what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon, blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

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I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angels who showed them to me, but He said to me, you must not do that.

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I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book, worship God. This is the second time the

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Apostle John has not resisted the temptation to worship the angel that was showing him these things because he was so awestruck by it.

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And both times the angel said, nope, nope, nope, don't worship me, worship God. Remember in John 20, 28, when

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Thomas worshipped Jesus and said, my Lord, my God, Jesus accepted that worship. He did it many times in the

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New Testament. Verse 10, he said to me, don't seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is near.

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Guys, remember when you read Daniel several times, it says seal up this prophecy because the time is not yet.

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The angel tells John, hey, don't seal up the words of this prophecy because the time is at hand. It's one of the main points for how we know

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Revelation is the last book of the Bible. Don't seal this one up. The time is here. Let the evil doer still do evil, the filthy still be filthy, the righteous still do what's right and the holy be holy.

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In other words, let God repay. Vengeance belongs to him. I will repay. Verse 12, behold,

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I am coming quickly. Who's talking? Jesus, right? Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so they may have the right to the tree of life and then the manager of a city by the gates, outside of the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immortal, the murderers, the adulterers and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

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I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the incentive of David, the bright morning star, spirit of the bride, say come and let the one who hears say come and let the one who's thirsty come and let the one who desires to take from the water a life without price.

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I want everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to them the place described in this book.

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I think it's most helpful to not view that as the whole Bible, even though it's fitting because in our

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Bible it's the last book. I think he's talking about the book of Revelation in general. At either rate, this kind of warning is given elsewhere in the

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Bible. In Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 12, Jeremiah 26, and just in case anyone's wondering, showing that Revelation is just as sacred and is part of the

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Holy Scriptures as those books, when God said, don't take away or add from anything I'm commanding you, he's now said that, he says it in Proverbs too, so we have

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Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Revelation, God's consistent all the way through. I skipped over something

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I did not mean to skip over, so let me go back. Jesus is speaking in verse 12, I am coming soon.

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Verse 13, I am the Alpha and the Omega. Back in Revelation 1 .8, Revelation 1 .8

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says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God.

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Here, Jesus is talking and he calls himself the Alpha and the Omega. You know why? Because Jesus is God. Isn't that awesome?

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Remember, Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet.

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In other words, I'm the first and the last, I'm the beginning and the end, I'm the A to Z. Verse 15, outsider, dog, sorcerer, sexual more, murderers, and others, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood, you know, we've talked about this before, even still in my redeemed state,

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I still sin, and I sin often, I sin every day, but to the redeemed, we're more and more conforming to the image of God.

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We don't love and practice our falsehood anymore. We hate it. What did

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Paul say? Why do I do the things that I hate? I don't want to do my sin anymore. If you're a

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Christian, you know what I'm talking about. That's what the word struggle means to me. Look it up. Google it right now. The word struggle means to make violent or forceful effort against.

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If you're struggling with sin, that's a good thing. That means you're resisting. It's the people who say they're Christians and aren't putting up a fight that makes me nervous for them.

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I don't love or practice falsehood. I may do it, but I don't make a practice of it. He calls himself the descendant of David, the comic messianic prophecy, the root and the descendant of David.

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So it's not just he's the descendant of David, he's the root, the beginning of it, because Jesus predates David, because he's

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God. A general call to repentance to the whole world, we see this throughout the

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Bible. Whoever is thirsty, whoever desires, come.

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He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

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The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all or with all the saints. Amen. Remember, amen doesn't mean the end.

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This is not a Disney story. Amen means so be it or let it be or I agree, let it happen.

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That's what amen means. When you say a prayer and you say amen, it doesn't mean the end. It means let what we just said come to pass.

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Maranatha, come Lord Jesus quickly. That should be our desire. But while we wait, as Titus 2 says, we are doing things in that waiting.

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It's not the other type of waiting where we're twiddling our thumbs. We're doing things in those waitings. Titus 2, 11 through 13,

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I'll read it. Tells us what we're supposed to be doing in the meantime. So does 1

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Peter 5. Titus 2, 11 through 14 says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions in the living self -controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of our great

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Did you notice we're waiting, but what are we doing?

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We're renouncing ungodliness, worldly passions and living self -controlled, upright and godly lives.

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Verse 14, he gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

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He's making us zealous for good works. That is the book of Revelation.

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Congratulations, guys. We did it. Is there anybody who's watched every episode of this?

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I am sorry you had to deal with all that. Guys, the book of Revelation, you know, we talked before, roughly speaking.

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The book of Revelation is, you know, we started with the churches in the beginning.

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Then we talked about, after we talked about the churches, we talked about prophecies started being fulfilled.

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We talked about how a large portion of the book of Revelation, chapter 6 or 4, depending on how you look at it, through what, 16?

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Take place during the seven -year tribulation. Actually through 19, really.

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Then you have the thousand -year reign. Thousand years of Jesus going to be reigning on this planet. Then you have the eternal state, the new heavens, new earth in chapter 21 and 22.

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Amen, Lord Jesus, come quickly. That's the book of Revelation. I'm glad we got through that, and I hope it was somewhat of a blessing to you.

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Don't just, if you ever have questions in the future about it, you can search, if you go to Witten Media Ministry on YouTube and search titles and find what you need from these chapters, from these titles, and re -watch them again.

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Maybe you'll have questions. Maybe there's things you don't necessarily agree with. Reach out to us. We're not shy about these things.

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These are kept as resources on the YouTube page, Witten Media Ministries, for that purpose.

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Witten Media Ministry, that gets hard to say. That's what they are there for. So that's the whole purpose of them, okay?

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Coming up very soon, we have the

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Feast of the New Testament. That is our next topic. We have the Feast of the New Testament coming up very soon.

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Should be ready for next week. I'll let you know if not. But I believe the

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Feast of the New Testament is what we're doing next, and I think that's going to start on the 23rd, or it's not going to start until June.

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I'll let you know. Guys, I've had fun doing these, doing this book of Revelation with you. I hope it's been a blessing to you.