The Bible in 16 Verses: 16. Glory

Okay, so as you know, we've gone through the Old Testament already, and this will be the last time I read this list.

I know I've read it 15 times before, and you're kind of sick of it. One, beginning with creation in Genesis, and then the creation of Adam and Eve, humanity.

Then the fall. Then redemption promise, the promise that God would provide one who would crush the head of the serpent.

Then we get to Abraham and the covenant that God makes with him, that all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham.

Then Judah the king, there will always be one seated on the throne. The Passover lamb, which is part of the

Exodus. King David, who would be the king that God puts on his throne.

The suffering servant, identified in Isaiah. Resurrection promise, the promise of being resurrected from the dead in the new heavens and the new earth.

And 11, the new creation. Then we moved into the time has come, or the fulfillment of these promises that we see in Jesus Christ.

So we see the fulfillment, we see the cross, we see the resurrection that was promised that Jesus fulfilled.

Then we see justification, how we're made right with God, and today we're going to go over the glory.

The glory of God in all of this. So our scripture verse for this morning is then

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their

God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

I could stop right there and celebrate. That's an amazing verse.

Okay. Not long after we started thinking about God and his very good creation, it seemed as if the problem of sin and death took us on an immediate detour.

But as we look back at the amazing story of salvation that we've reviewed together, I hope you can see this was no detour.

God didn't react to what we were doing to accomplish his plan. He decreed it and brought it to pass.

From the very beginning, God intended for us to behold his glory in his astonishing plan to save undeserving sinners.

And from the very beginning, God intended to send his own son to die for the ungodly and dwell with his people.

Jesus is the end of the law. That word end doesn't mean over with. That means goal, the target.

Everything was pointing to him. Everything is for him, through him, and to him.

He was the point of this whole plan. The Bible synopsis in one sentence, can anybody remember way back when, when we first started?

There was one pithy little sentence we used to describe the whole Bible. It's this.

Through Jesus, God has reconciled everything that sin has ruined. That's a one sentence summary of the entire scriptures.

Through Jesus, God is reconciling everything that sin has ruined, such that there will be no more ruin.

God is sovereign over this whole plan. He's the one who pushes history forward with his hand in it, moving it in the direction he wants it to, to accomplish his plan so that he gets the glory.

The promises in the Old Testament, the sacrifices of the law, everything that the prophets such as Isaiah and Ezekiel spoke about, along with everything else in the

Old Testament, found its fulfillment in Jesus. He came to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, and as a result, he defeated the problem of sin and death and crushed the serpent's head.

The scriptures, the Bible, is all Jesus' testimony. Every one of us who's come to Christ, if it wasn't at a very young age, we've come to Christ, our testimony is how we lived in the world and God transformed us and brought us into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of his

Son. That's our testimony. Jesus, his testimony starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation.

It is all, this is a testimony of Jesus Christ. We see this throughout the scriptures and the

New Testament writers acknowledge this. In John, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him whom

Moses and the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

They recognized that Moses and the prophets were pointing towards him. John 5, 39,

Jesus himself says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the scriptures that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me for life.

He says, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

The whole Old Testament is about Jesus Christ. Excellent verse, by the way, to bring your

Jehovah's Witnesses friends and family to. Who are they coming to? Moses, everyone in the

Old Testament was writing about who? Jesus. You refuse to come to Jesus for eternal life.

You go to Jehovah. Jesus is Jehovah. That's a sidetrack. Okay. Continuing on,

John 12, Isaiah said these things because they saw his glory, Jesus' glory, and spoke of him.

That's another excellent verse to point to the deity of Jesus as described by Isaiah in the

Old Testament. First Peter 10 and 11, concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

The spirit of Christ was in them, pointing them to this time. Luke 24, and he said to them,

O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the

Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted them in all the scriptures to the things concerning himself.

It was all pointing towards him. If you think that God got lucky in that Jesus came on the scene when he did, you're sadly mistaken.

This is God's sovereign hand and his providence advancing time according to his plan to get to the point where we have

Jesus in the world. Acts 3 .22, Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to the prophets shall be destroyed from the people.

The prophet that God rose up from in the midst of the Jews was Jesus. Acts 13 .27,

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every

Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. The ones who rejected him actually fulfilled the prophecies that he would be rejected.

Now there's a popular Bible teacher, I can't even call him that, there's a popular teacher who says he uses the

Bible, he says you need to unhitch yourself from the Old Testament. So you know,

Luke who wrote the book of Luke and the book of Acts and Peter, these guys don't know what they're talking about, referencing the

Old Testament. Why would you do that? Friends, man cannot live by bread alone but by every word out of the mouth of God.

That includes the Old Testament. You are jettisoning

God's words when you say unhook yourself from that as if you don't need it. You need that.

1 Corinthians 10 says these things, the Old Testament was written for your instruction. And now you're going to throw that away?

That's not a Bible teacher. That's something else. But this story did not end a thousand years ago, you and I have been called to be part of it.

Forty days after his resurrection Jesus ascended into heaven. Then the good news about Jesus, the seed of the woman, the reigning son of David, burst out of Jerusalem and started spreading around the world.

And it's been on the move ever since. The kingdom of God has been expanding since Jesus' ascension.

From the resurrection until the return of Christ, this amazing story continues whenever the gospel goes into a new place.

We are called to bring the good news of God's saving plan to those around us who are hurting and still lost in their sin and death.

The kingdom has been inaugurated. We are in the process of advancing the kingdom into all the world.

Our job is to preach the gospel. What does the word gospel mean? Good news and what is it actually, what is the good news?

That Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord over the entire earth and everybody is going to have to answer to him.

Now your sins can be paid for by trusting in him or you will meet him and pay for your own sins.

I would encourage you to repent, change the way you think about sin, turn from it and cling to the only solution that God has given us.

The only God who is willing to love you to death, lay down his own life in your place to bring you to God the

Father. This is the most incredible love story you will ever encounter in your life. Matthew 16, and I tell you,

Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He didn't say

I'm going to build a nation, I'm going to build a country, a nationality.

He says I will build my church. The church is global, it's worldwide, it's not one country, okay?

Everyone will answer to Jesus as Lord. He is ruling and reigning right now. However, this won't go on forever and ever.

The New Testament is full of promises that as the angels told the disciples watching Jesus ascend into heaven, he will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

In other words, Jesus will return, right? But when

Jesus had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

So him sitting down at the right hand of God means what? His ruling?

Well, that's part of it. When he sat, his work is finished.

When the priest went into the Holy of Holies, he could not sit down because the work was never finished.

Next year they'd have to do another sacrifice and sprinkle the blood on the atonement cover, the kapor they call it.

Jesus sat down. That means the work of atonement is complete, it's done. That's why Jesus from the cross said it is finished, paid in full.

Your sins have been paid in full by Jesus on the cross. You repent and place your faith and trust in him to receive that benefit, right?

After he sat down, he's now waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

In other words, everything needs to be brought under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

And when we proclaim the gospel to people, we are attempting to bring them under the lordship of Jesus Christ in covenant with him.

Even if they don't come to Jesus Christ, they've been given the message of the good news.

Them rejecting it will bring them under his judgment. Everything will be brought under the lordship of Jesus.

First Corinthians 15, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Then the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death will be no more.

Death gets executed. From now on, he lives to rule here on earth.

He leaves, I'm sorry, he leaves us to rule here on earth. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

In other words, because Christ is seated in the heavenlies, in our union with Christ, we are seated with him, okay?

And he's given, all authority has been given to Jesus. He now tells us what to do, going to all the nations, teaching them everything

I've commanded you to do, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. He gives us authority to go into the nations and he says,

I will be with you. Fear not little flock, it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Lots of Christians disagree about the details of Christ's return, but they all agree that when he comes, his people will live with him forever.

They all agree that when Jesus comes back, sin and death will finally and fully be defeated and the devil and everyone who follows him will face the just consequences for their rebellion and treason against God.

So will those who continue to shake their fists at God, not believing him, not trusting that he really is enough, but those who cast themselves on Jesus will live with him forever in the new creation that we saw back in Isaiah and is described here in Revelation.

So again, because God is holy and God is just, every sin in this world must be paid for.

Either Jesus will pay for it or you will pay for it yourself. Either way, ultimate satisfaction for all those sins is complete.

While Isaiah 65 gave us our first glimpse at those days, we find the culmination of that vision in the last book of the

Bible, Revelation, which means uncovering, by the way. As we finish our journey, let's take a few moments to rejoice in what awaits us.

God's people will finally live with God uncorrupted by sin, unharried by worry and pain, unconcerned about whether and how we can earn

God's favor. God's people will live with him under the perfect rule of Jesus. Everybody wants a king.

The problem is everybody thinks they're the king, right? We have to submit to the one true king, get off our own thrones and acknowledge him.

And then when we have one king, we have one family, one group of people who are aligned with the same king.

This is Revelation 21. 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.

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their

God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

It's a glorious verse. And this is an actual picture of what it's going to look like.

You got it. You left. Normally I put those pictures up, you're like, really? That's not the real picture, just to let you know.

So what will that be? It will be God's people in God's place under God's rule, enjoying

God's blessing. That's what the kingdom of God means. Graham Goldsworthy did a book, a trilogy, and his definition of kingdom is

God's people in God's place under God's rule, enjoying God's blessing.

Matthew 13, he put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make its nest in its branches.

This is the principle of gradualism. We don't see the kingdom of God expanding quickly and covering everything.

We see that it takes time. A little yeast works through the whole dough. It takes time. So sometimes we look at the world and we're like, why isn't

Jesus coming back yet? Well, it takes time. God has people that maybe 10 years from now, a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, that he has chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that he's going to save.

Our job is to remain faithful to the call God's given us here and now. We're in the obedience business.

God's in the results business. Just do your part. Share the gospel, trust in God, give people the gospel, live a life that says thank you to the

God that saved you, that rescued you, and says something to the people around you.

Why is he acting different than me? You know, I got really mad at him and he smiled and said, thank you. When we don't react the way the world reacts, it sends them a message.

Why are you at peace? Because my God sits on the throne, he's ruling and reigning until his enemies are made of footstool for his feet.

I can't wait for him to come back and you shouldn't either, right? In this vision,

John saw a new heaven and a new earth, a new creation. John 1 .1, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God.

The word was God. He came to the earth and we beheld his glory, the glory of the one and only begotten of the father.

Jesus first coming into this world was the beginning of the new creation. Its kingdom inaugurated.

So let's get this out of the way. Heaven will not be an eternity of boredom, sitting on clouds, strumming harps, or mindlessly strumming harps.

There we go. The more we read the Bible, the more earthly we should become convinced that heaven will be, will be like Eden.

It will be a vibrant, joyful place where every one of our senses will be fully engaged. We will be doing things in heaven, not just strumming harps.

Next time you're gazing at a beautiful sunset or a snow -capped mountain, just remember that there is a new creation still to come.

Until we are there, we won't really understand what it means to live and truly enjoy God's creation. And we were talking about this a couple of days ago.

What's heaven going to be like? Are we going to sleep? Are we going to wake up? Are we going to eat? What's going on? There's all these questions that sometimes the

Bible is a little vague on. We don't have definitive answers. But we will be there. We'll be in the presence of our

God, and he will dwell with us. So he's going to have a glorified body. We're going to have glorified bodies, and we're going to enjoy the time.

The new creation will also be a place where danger, fear, instability, and anxiety will be gone forever.

Remember, anybody suffering danger, fear, instability, and anxiety, hello, America. That's going to be gone forever.

And this is what John means by the sea was no more. The sea was representative of the

Gentiles. Remember God separated the land from the water. The Israelites were people of the land.

Why is that important? Land is stable. Did you ever try to stand on water? Doesn't work.

Only for Jesus. And Peter for a little while. You can't stand on water. You're going to sink.

You have firm stability when you stand on land. The sea is tumultuous, always moving.

That's why people get seasick, they don't get land sick. Because the sea is moving up, down, back, forth, tides in, tides out.

It's always in motion. The land is stable. The sea represents motion, instability, disorder.

The land represents stability, order, something that's firm, doesn't move like God.

For most people, the sea was a picture of danger and the unknown. So instead of thinking about all the fun they'd miss out with no ocean to play in,

John's readers would have thought all of the potential danger they'd be spared with no sea to worry

In other words, there would be no more chaos, no more disorder. We get a sense of this in the last part of our passage.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away.

When COVID came, did anybody get shook? Some of us got shook. You know why?

Because we were holding on to things that could be shaken. When you stand firm on the rock of Jesus Christ, when the winds and the storms come, you're stable.

Yeah, you feel it, but you're stable. You know where you stand. The former things, all the fallout from sin and death will pass away.

The curse will be irreversibly crushed and we will experience what Adam and Eve were only in the beginning to taste in the garden.

Also notice that we will live in the holy city, New Jerusalem. Remember how

Isaiah saw the new creation and the New Jerusalem as two ways of talking about the same thing. It's both talking about heaven and God's people.

John is following Isaiah's lead here and seeing the two as the same, God seems to take the kernel of the promise and multiply it expositionally.

And here's a little example of that. Psalm 30, 37, 11, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundance.

What is the church going to inherit? Blessed are the meek.

They shall inherit the earth, the entire earth, not just a sliver of land in the

Mediterranean. It's going to be the whole earth. Jesus has purchased everything.

He purchased the entire world. It belongs to him. Our job is to take the gospel to all those places that haven't heard it and continue to build it in the places that have heard it.

This is pretty amazing and actually summarizes the way we've seen God work throughout the Bible. The promises to Abraham included the promise to bless all the families of the earth.

While we never lost sight of that worldwide promise, the line of promise narrowed to one nation, one family, and eventually one person.

But we finally see the full scope of God's worldwide promises here in Revelation.

So God promised this for the whole world through Abraham. He narrowed it down from Abraham to Jacob, then

Jacob's 12 sons. Then we get to the tribe of Judah. He narrows it down and through that line comes

Jesus. Again, this was not by accident. This was not random chance.

This is God's sovereign hand working through time to get to the point where he brings

Messiah into the world in the fullness of time. That was the time that God wanted

Jesus here. That was the time he prophesied about. And it comes to pass.

God doesn't get surprised. Everything that happens is because God decreed it to happen.

So it makes sense that Jerusalem, the city where God's people and more importantly his presence dwelt, will one day fill the whole earth because we see that the dwelling place of God will permanently be with man.

When God created Adam and Eve, he was with them in their presence. When they sinned, they ran away.

They were no longer in his presence. But God in his mercy and grace didn't say, I'll just wait for you to come to your senses and come back to me.

No, he pursued them. In a merciful and gracious way, he goes and draws them to him.

He finds them. He exposes their sin to them and then covers both of them in skins, a picture of the robe of righteousness that Jesus would eventually cover us with.

God's promises were never intended for one nation or one ethnic group. As John saw early in Revelation, the

Lamb of God ransomed people for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

The promise was never for one ethnic group of people. The promise was for all ethnic groups of people, all mankind.

All mankind is commanded to repent and come to Christ.

He is the Savior for all people, Jew and Gentile. Back then, the

Jews were hoarding God for themselves. Oh, no, no, no. He belongs to us. He doesn't deal with Gentile dogs like you.

We're the recipients of the promise. A little arrogant, huh? But God humbles them and then draws

Gentiles to him out of his mercy and grace. 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 it light, and its lamp is the

Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the

Lamb's book of life. So let me ask you something. Do you guys lock your doors at night? Why?

Because you live in New York. Very good answer. You lock your doors at night because you don't want intruders to come in, right?

You realize that the gates of heaven are going to be open forever. You know why? All the enemies are going to be gone.

You're not going to have to worry. No worry. You'll leave your doors open, right? No one is going to come and attack

God's people. It's going to be a place of perfection. And we also see in here there's no need of the sun or moon to shine on it.

Why did God give us the sun, the moon, and the stars? To rule the day and the night and to be signs for us?

We're no longer going to need those signs because we're going to dwell in the presence of the sign giver.

He's going to show us everything. Now I've told some people this before. What I think heaven is going to be like, like as a young kid growing up,

Christmas Eve was like the day of anticipation, like tomorrow is Christmas Day. Now as Italians, we had a big dinner at night, right?

And we would try to stay up, but we couldn't. But we were so anxious about what we were getting for Christmas.

Christmas morning, you couldn't wait. You jumped out of bed. You ran inside. You woke your parents up. It's like 530 in the morning, like, no.

We woke them up. Then we go inside. We open our gifts and we're all happy, right? I think heaven is going to be like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day every day.

Every night, we're going to have that anticipation of waking up in the morning and God revealing to us another little nugget of who he is and what he's done and an aspect of him that we were never revealed before.

And then we're all going to sit down and have a big family meal together. And then we're going to go to sleep and wake up and it's going to be another and another and another.

It's going to be Christmas Day every day, maybe. That's the

AUV version. Because God will live there and every threat that sin has raised will be expelled, the new creation will be far beyond anything we can imagine.

It certainly won't be boring, but it will be beautiful, like a bride adorned for her husband.

If you are a husband, you know that moment when you watch your bride walk down the aisle and you can think of nothing more beautiful than her.

This is Jesus looking at his bride. Our experience in the new creation will be similarly joyful, even though we will be the bride, not the bridegroom, because the work of Jesus, our

Messiah and King, we will finally live as God intended, under his perfect rule, in the place he prepared for us, living with him forever.

Here finally the covenants with Adam, Abraham, Judah, Israel and David will see their fulfillment as the royal offspring reigns forever over God's redeemed people.

Again, this is all pointing forward, pointing us to Jesus Christ as King. He is the fulfillment of every promise.

Okay, now I told you what this was before. What is God's kingdom? God's people, in God's place, under God's rule, enjoying

God's blessing. And here's the final part, forever, forever.

It will never end. It will never end. Jesus will never be dethroned. We will never not be

God's people. We will always be under his rule and enjoying his blessing forever, days without end.

All right, so what exactly did Jesus do? Why does everything point to Jesus? When Jesus picked the 12 disciples, he was reconstituting

Israel, the same way there was 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 tribes in the old covenant, there's 12 apostles in the new to usher in a new exodus, a new creation.

Matthew's gospel certainly appears to teach that Jesus, as true Israel, recapitulates old covenant

Israel's history and purpose. Jesus is the son of Abraham, thus making him

Israel, right? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob was called Israel, not

Esau. Jacob was one man, and he was called Israel. All of his children become the tribes of Israel.

Israel is a person as well as a nation. God's covenant promises given with respect to Abraham's seed were really given to Christ.

The promise was to Abraham and his seed, that seed being Jesus Christ. It's interesting to note at this point that the name

Israel is not the first given to a nation, given to the nation, rather it's given to an individual, Jacob.

Jacob was a type of Christ being for a time, the head of the covenant, and as an individual with the name

Israel, he typifies the redeemer who is going to be true Israel. So everything you see in the old covenant is recapitulated in the new, because the old was pointing forward to the new.

The old was not an end in and of itself. It could never save you. The new can.

All the old covenant can do is point out the fact that you're a sinner and you need a substitute.

You need a lamb. You need a sacrifice with blood to satisfy God. The new covenant says, you are a sinner, but I'm the

Savior, permanent Savior. No need to do the sacrifices year after year.

Okay, so watch this. In the Old Testament, Pharaoh ordered all the firstborn to be killed.

In the New Testament, Herod ordered all the firstborn to be killed. It's a parallel.

Israel was in Egypt. Jesus came out of Egypt. Out of Egypt, I called my son.

They went down, Joseph and Mary went down to Egypt for the census and he was coming out.

Israel passed through the sea, the waters, baptism. Jesus was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.

That was the beginning of his ministry. Israel was led into wilderness by the

Holy Spirit. Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. Israel was tempted.

Jesus was tempted. But here's the difference. Every place that Israel failed,

Jesus succeeded. He's true Israel. He was perfectly righteous.

In him there was no sin. Jesus is true Israel and redemption is redemption accomplished in him.

The nation of Israel was a type and shadow of the world. Jesus is the one who was called the seed of Abraham, true

Israel who comes. He's the suffering servant, the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world.

It all pointed to him. Do you see how all the things in the Old Testament are now being buttoned up in the

New Testament? Everything that he promised is being fulfilled and brought perfectly together in Christ.

We saw in Genesis 3 that Adam and Eve sinned when they took the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This plunged the world into sin and death, but God immediately began working to send the seed of the woman to reverse the curse.

As we learned in John 19, Jesus did this and paid the decisive price for sin when he gave his body on the tree of Calvary.

Finally, here in Revelation, we find another tree. If we keep reading Revelation, we find the tree of life springing up in the middle of this city and a river that flows from the very throne of God feeds this tree and the tree gives life to the nations.

It was at the very beginning God's people will always be dependent on Jesus through the

Spirit for life. God didn't create humanity to be independent.

He created humanity to be dependent and him putting that tree in the garden and them falling by taking the fruit of the tree was a sign to them that they needed to be dependent on God for everything.

If they listened to someone else, the voice of the serpent, they would be separated from God.

If you listen to the voice of the Savior, if you listen to the voice of God himself, your Creator, you are created in his image to be dependent on him for everything.

So a river flows from the very throne of God, feeds this tree, and the tree gives life to the nations.

It was at the very beginning God's people will always be dependent on Jesus through the Spirit for life, but we have seen that he can always be trusted to give what we need and for all eternity we will have the joy of trusting him and receiving from him.

This is what we were made for, to live in and enjoy the life -giving presence of God.

He is life. He is love. He is holy. So what's going to change?

Because we had the kingdom inaugurated and we're waiting for the kingdom to be consummated, in other words, finalized.

We lived in the probationary world of Genesis. It was a time of, it was a probationary period.

When we get to the other side, it's going to be the eternal world, not probationary.

So in the probationary world, we saw the division of light and darkness. In the eternal world, there's no night there.

In the probationary world, there was division of land and sea.

Now there'll be no more sea. Now obviously the book of Revelation is symbolic. It doesn't mean that there's not going to be water.

The sea is representative, again, of disorder and tumultuousness.

The rule of the sun and the moon, no need for the sun or the moon. Where man was prepared in a garden, man now is prepared in the city.

The kingdom has expanded to its full size. There was a river flowing out of Eden.

Now there's a river flowing from God's throne. There was gold in the land.

There's now gold in the city. There was a tree of life in the midst of the garden. There will now be a tree of life throughout the city.

Bedillium and onyx stone were in the probationary world. Now all manner of precious stones will be in the new world.

God was walking in the garden. Finally, God will dwell. God will dwell with his people.

This is what the consummated kingdom will look like. So again, we see all these things that were told to us in Genesis, the beginning chapters of Genesis, all being retold to us in Revelation for the consummation of all things.

There are no unfulfilled promises. There's nothing that was revealed to us that is not going to be found complete in the final world.

So we had the cursed world, and again, the eternal world. The ground was cursed.

Now there'll be no more curse in the new heavens and new earth. There was daily sorrow in the cursed world.

There will be no more sorrow in the eternal world. There was thorns and thistles. Now there'll be no more toil, no more pain, no more thorns and thistles as we work.

We're going to be working in the new heavens and earth, and we're going to like it. There was sweat on your face and tears.

Now the tears are wiped away. There was eating herbs of the field.

Now there's 12 manner of fruits. There was a returning to the dust. Now there's no more death.

Returning to the dust means you were brought back into the earth. Now there's no more death. You will never worry about being brought back to death.

You have a question? Oh, okay, sorry. There was evil continually.

God saw that the evil of man, the evil of man's heart was only evil continually. There will be nothing that defiles in the new city.

There was a coat of skins. God clothed them with the animal skins. Now will be clothed in fine linen, white and clean, the robe of Christ's righteousness.

In the cursed world, there was opposition from Satan. In the new world, Satan will be banished.

There'll be no accuser of the brethren. In the first, we were kept from the tree of life.

Now we will have access to the tree of life. In the cursed world, we were banished from the garden.

Now we're free to enter the city because of Jesus. We were promised a redeemer in Genesis, and redemption was accomplished through Christ.

You see how all of these things find their fulfillment? There's no loose ends.

There's nothing undone. Everything that God promised and showed us in Eden will be completed in the inaugurated new world.

Actually, like, this was a book that I bought my kids, and I saw this chart, and I'm like, wow, this is really good.

So day and night were created. No more night. The world was made.

The world was made new. Tree of life was made. The tree of life continues.

God dwells with his people. God again will dwell with his people forever. The people disobey

God. The people now obey God. People began fighting and struggling with one another.

People will stop fighting and struggling with each other. Sickness and death entered the world.

Sickness and death were conquered. Satan, the serpent, destroys.

Satan is defeated. This story is not just a story we sit back and read to our kids.

It is a story that you and I are called to join. Jesus said, behold, I'm making all things new.

Right now he is making new creatures as more and more people around the world put their hope in him as their only savior.

And he calls us to proclaim that good news to this world that is still suffering in sin and death.

We have the joy of seeing God at work to reverse the curse and defeat the serpent. We get to announce the good news of Jesus' victory and invite our neighbors and friends to turn from their sin and trust in him alone as their substitute and savior.

Do you see the glory of the new creation and how it is the fulfillment of everything that God has promised?

And it was not dependent on us. It was completely dependent on him.

This is his work. This is Jesus' testimony. This is his glory.

So let's get to work. He's called you and I to join in this mission to not just receive and hear the good news, but to share the good news.

What comes in through our heads must come out through our hands and our mouths. The message of the good news comes out through our mouths and the work of the good news, our transformed life, comes through our hands.

Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates outside of the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral and the murderers, idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright and morning star.

The spirit and the bride say, come. Let the one who hears say, come.

Let the one who is thirsty, come. Let the one who desires to take the water of life without price.

I urge you today, if you do not know the Lord, turn from your sin, place your faith and trust in him, cling to him as your savior.

And he who is seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. He also said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.

And he said to me, it is done, finished, paid in full. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. To the one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his

God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexual immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

These are the people we need to be sharing the gospel with. You know why?

We were those people. Don't ever think for a moment, oh, I'm better than someone else. You're not.

We've all lied. We've all blasphemed God's name. We've stolen things. We've looked with lust.

We've looked with hate in our heart. We're all guilty. Our job is to be ambassadors of the new creation and bringing the message of the gospel to other people who need the mercy and grace of God the same way we did.

Isaiah 6 -3, and one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. This is the fulfillment of his glorious plan.

So real quick, I've got a couple minutes. In this last session, we learned the new creation was consummated, in other words, it began.

Jesus completed and fulfilled all the prophecies, and he will come back after his enemies have made a footstool for his feet, redemption, the payment for our sins has been accomplished, all the covenants have been kept.

Praise God. This will be the last time I'm reading this summary. God created a very good kingdom of which he is the king.

He created human beings, his children to represent him in that kingdom, and they were responsible to expand it.

Through their sin, Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their father and creator. Yet, God proved his covenant love toward them despite their unfaithfulness.

Very good did not turn into very bad. It just proved the character of who was always very good,

God. There will be ongoing enmity between the offspring from now on, but God promised a redeemer who will crush the head of the enemy and secure

God's victory. With this promise, very broken turned into very hopeful. Next, God chose

Abraham, an idolater, to bring the seed, and a Gentile, by the way, to bring the seed through whom the covenant blessings would come to all of the families of the world.

Despite the sinful lineage of Abraham's family, and specifically Judah's royal seed through David, God is still faithful to bring the covenant blessings to the world, which would be ruled, eventually ruled by a faithful king,

Jesus. Because all people were guilty and deserved death, the blood sacrifices of the

Mosaic law reveal more clearly their guilt and ongoing need for a substitute, the one suffering servant revealed to us in Isaiah 53.

Through the servant and the work of the spirit, God would establish a new covenant and give eternal life to the people as a free gift.

Jesus is the promised one, the anointed one, the seed of the woman, the true Israel and high priest, the suffering servant through whom all of these promises find their perfect and permanent fulfillment on the cross.

Jesus was declared with power to be the son of God by his resurrection from the dead, and the only one through whom all of these promises find their fulfillment.

First, to the sacrificial death for sin, then in his victorious resurrection and reign as king.

Through the Abrahamic covenant, all those who exercise true faith in the seed, Jesus Christ, Jehovah Sikhenu, become righteous by faith.

Jesus ultimately fulfills all God's covenants, bringing all God's promises to fruition, reconciling everything that sin has broken, making all things new forever, and dwelling with all

God's people. Glory. Everything in his temple cries, glory.

How should we respond? My prayer is that when

I die, all of hell rejoices that I'm out of the fight. Get in the fight.

You're fighting for something whether you realize it or not. Get in the fight.

Recognize who he is. Recognize what he's done. Recognize he cannot lose.

Recognize that our opponents need to be afraid of us, not the other way around.

You never need fear someone who doesn't know what a woman is. You speak the truth, and let the truth do its work in their minds and hearts.