End of Life, End of Times: Paradise Returns Revelation 21:1-22:5

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to this point We have gone through a long journey to see how the end of the world is going to take place
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We have seen the pre -tribulation rapture of the church We have seen all the events of the seven -year tribulation
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We have seen that Jesus returns to the earth after the tribulation We have seen the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ We have seen the destruction of the universe and the final judgment that follows
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So what we have seen are all the events that bring an end to world history What I mentioned in previous sermons in this secular world
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Sorry, let me say it again What I've mentioned in previous sermons is the secular world thinks the world is going to keep going and going
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Until it ends in nothingness But thankfully, that's not how the world is going to end.
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The Bible is never wrong It is without error in Everything it says so we can be sure that how the
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Bible says the world is going to end is how it is going to end Now once this world ends
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Everything will be how it was meant to be It is interesting when you ask people the question would you want to live forever
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It's interesting to hear their responses and usually the response is always similar and what people say is
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They wouldn't and that's because we know that this is a world full of pain and suffering
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This world is a messy place and what they find is that lasting happiness and peace is so often elusive
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This fallen world is full of suffering and death and who would want to live forever in a world like that The world has not always been like this and we don't we don't always obviously understand that unless we read the
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Bible because It's all we know. It's our whole experience. We live in the fallen world
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When God created the world what the text of Scripture says in Genesis 131 is that everything in God's eyes was very good
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Everything was precisely as it was supposed to be the world ran
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According to God's design and the two humans on the earth at that time Adam and Eve Lived how they were supposed to live they lived in this communion and this joy in God They lived in an unhindered fellowship with him
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They were sinless And of course God is holy he can only be around sinless people in their in his presence
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But we know how the story goes After a certain amount of time had passed
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Adam and Eve fell into sin Then everything changed Adam and Eve were cursed as sinners and since the whole universe
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Since then the whole universe is also cursed World history for thousands of years has been a story of a few bright spots with mostly darkness
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Those few bright spots are God's work in the world The most notable work was when he sent his son
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Jesus to the cross to die for our sins The life of Jesus was the hinge on which the future of the world was held
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When Jesus accomplished his mission at the cross, he ensured that the world would be restored to its original perfection
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His redemptive work ensured that once again mankind would dwell in unhindered fellowship with him
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Now in our sermon series we have seen the judgment that God brings on the unrighteous world and Only those who have been redeemed by Christ will live on in the new world with God Only those redeemed by Christ Will be the new humanity the humanity that God desired to have when he created the world
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So this is what we are going to see this morning. We will see a new creation with God's glorified people
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Here's our here's our big idea Set your hope on the world you have always longed for prepared by your glorious God Set your hope on the world you have always longed for prepared by your glorious God We're gonna see five future realities that you will experience
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And here's here's the first one You will inhabit a new
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Universe you will inhabit a new universe and we're gonna see this in Revelation chapter 21 verses 1 through 8.
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So at this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Revelation 21 And I don't need to tell you what page to turn to because just go to the back of the
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Bible. It's the very end So we're gonna begin by reading verses 1 through 8 and what we will see is that you will inhabit a new universe
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This is John's vision the Apostle John his vision of this glorious place
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He said or he wrote 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
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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
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From the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man
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He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their
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God He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more
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Neither shall there be mourning nor nor crying nor pain anymore
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For the former things have passed away and he who was seated on the throne said behold
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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
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I Am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning in the end to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment
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The one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son
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But as for the cowardly the faithless the detestable as for murderers the sexually immoral sorcerers idolatrous and all liars
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Their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur
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Which is the second death? What we saw two
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Sundays ago is that God is going to destroy the old sinful universe there will be a mammoth atomic explosion and This universe that we presently exist that exist in will cease to exist
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There will be nothing once again Just like there was nothing when
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God created the world remember at one time. It was father son and Holy Spirit and then God created everything out of nothing ex nihilo
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And what it's hard for us to understand is that the present heaven the place where believers go when they die
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There's where their spirit goes and the present hell the place where the unbelieving spirit goes when they die
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These aren't located in our universe. It's not like you can get a spaceship and Travel to these locations.
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These are realms. These are spiritual realms That are not in this universe
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When God Destroys this universe the unredeemed will already be in hell in Their new bodies and the redeemed will be in heaven with their glorified bodies and when all humanity are in their respective locations
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This is when God is going to recreate a new universe
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And what's going to happen is that the believers in their new bodies are going to be able to come to this new universe as The Apostle John sees this vision
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This is what he sees He sees a new heaven and a new earth since the first heaven and the first earth had passed away
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Now when we hear the word heaven we think of the place where believers go when they die, and that's true as I just mentioned
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But there are three heavens According to Scripture the first heaven is the atmosphere
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This is where the birds fly or planes fly the second is outer space
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This is where astronauts astronauts grow a goal and they don't grow there but they go there and they go to the moon and they go to places like that and the third heaven is the place where God dwells and This is the place where believers go when they die and where believers are right now.
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You maybe know some of them But in verse one of our texts when we see heaven this is referring to outer space and The earth is of course referring to planet
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Earth and that would include the atmosphere Okay, so it has in mind here the first and second heaven
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So what we see here is a new creation God created the first creation out of nothing and he will do the same with the second creation and Once he creates it then redeemed mankind will of course be able to inhabit it
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God creates a universe that is to be enjoyed just like he did the first creation The world is meant to be a playground and a resourceful for humanity to enjoy
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Creation is a display of God's goodness to his people How wonderful God is we think about?
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This playground that we live in we get to enjoy and live in and God creates it for us to be
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People who enjoy it And what we read at the end of verse one is that the sea was no more
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This does not mean that there will be no bodies of water in the new creation The word sea is used figuratively in the book of Revelation Specifically in Revelation 13 1 when the
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Antichrist comes into the world it says that he comes out of the sea So in Revelation the word sea is meant to mean rebellious humanity
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So when it says in Revelation 21 that the sea is no more what it means is that the rebellion of humanity is no
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More it's a thing in the past. It's never going to come again in Revelation 22 1
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Mentions that that there's going to be the river of the water of life running through the holy city
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Okay, so there will according to my understanding there will be water on the new earth
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One of the most beautiful forms of scenery that we enjoy in this world our bodies of water
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We know that living where we live right? We're surrounded by it in Minnesota and Wisconsin There are roughly 25 to 30 ,000 lakes and there's lots of rivers, of course as well
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Brand and I we just went up to Lake Superior We went up to Duluth and we were able to kayak a little bit on Lake Superior And that was quite an experience.
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That's something that we had never done before And we think about when you think about these large bodies of water or small bodies of water.
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It's really it's truly breathtaking We enjoy these things And so I believe that in the new earth we will enjoy bodies of water
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Just as we do here that in verse 2 we see the capital city known as the
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New Jerusalem Coming down out of heaven to the new earth The center of God's work in this world has taken place in Jerusalem that was the capital city of his holy people
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Israel But in the age to come this city will be much more glorious than it is now or it has been historically much more glorious Well, the text said is that this city is
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Prepared as a bride Adorned for her husband in other words The Lord has prepared this city for his people and just as the bride makes herself
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Beautiful for the groom on their wedding day So God makes this city beautiful for his people
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And we're gonna look at how marvelous this city is in a little bit If your jaw is not dropping by the end of the sermon, then there's something wrong with you.
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Okay, we're gonna see some Things that are hard to imagine Then in verse 3 we read a voice coming from the throne
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This is the voice of God that says behold the dwelling place of God is with man the greatest blessing of Heaven will not be the wonderful creation that we will get to enjoy or being reunited with loved ones
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And it will and it won't be that we won't experience pain or suffering, but we will only experience
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Happiness forever all of these things are so wonderful But the greatest blessing of heaven is this the dwelling place of God will be with mankind
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Once again where we will be able to have unhindered fellowship with God Just as Adam and Eve had before they sinned
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Think about that That's the most wonderful blessing of heaven Sometimes I I've asked people in the and this is a good litmus test.
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Would you want to go to heaven if God? Were not there if Jesus were not present.
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So in other words people just want the the other things that go with it and of course the best part of heaven is
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God his presence will be among us as We enjoy all of his gifts as well
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Everyone in this room who knows Christ understands that you have Fellowship with God right now, but that fellowship is not as good as it could be
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This is because we still live in sin and sin prevents us from having more joy in the
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Lord. I Experience this all the time. I'm thinking as I go through some of my days Lord I'm not enjoying you as much as I should be because every day is a fight against sin
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But a day is coming when sin will be no more We won't have our sinful nature anymore and we will be able to enjoy the
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God God the way he made us to enjoy him then in verse 4
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We learn that the pain of this life will be a thing of the past as the
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Lord wipes away every tear from our eyes You think about how many how many tears come out of our eyes as we live in this world how much?
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Discouragement that we go through and suffering it says here. He's gonna wipe away those tears. There won't be tears of sorrow in heaven there's gonna be no more death as verse 4 says
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No more sadness or crying or any kind of pain
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Since the former things have passed away in other words All the difficulty and suffering of this life
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Will be a distant memory for the believer So if you are facing any kind of suffering right now
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Remember that a day is coming When this will be a distant memory you're suffering and hold tightly to the hope that you will be in this home one day with your
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God As you look at your life right now, you can remember difficult times of your past And those of you who live longer some of these difficult things happened so long ago
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You still remember the difficulty and the pain, but it is a faint memory
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This memory of the past will make you more grateful for the bliss You experience in the present and the bliss that will go on forevermore
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Think about this. We know this well as people who live in the north when we
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Go through the suffering of winter. I mean think about it. I mean we lose sight of it I mean, it's so beautiful all right now
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You can just go walk outside in your shorts and and just enjoy the day and sip some lemonade
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I know that I know Jackson and Mason right they had a lemonade stand the other day I wish I would have known about I would have come But I know mark enjoyed it he told me about it
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Yeah, yeah next time they do that everybody in the church. Let's go there. That'd be fun. Would that be a fun a fun thing to do but anyway
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We can we enjoy the weather here right in in the summer Winter comes We're locked in Right we get buried in snow.
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It's frozen everything and and you can't stand outside for more than two minutes without freezing
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But when the summer comes We were more grateful. We're more grateful than people in the south who?
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Always have nice weather, and I think this is what it's gonna be like right
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We will be more grateful in the age to come because of the suffering we face in this life
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And so we must remember that that that there is more joy That is able to come from this because of the trials that we face now
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And so this should fill us with great. Hope as we look ahead to the future a Day is coming when we won't have to deal with our sin anymore.
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We won't have to deal with our sufferings anymore But only enjoyment forever
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Then in verses 5 through 8 the one who is seated on the throne God said that he was making all things new
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And he tells John to write this down because everything that he is being told is trustworthy and true
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So future readers, that's us Everything that we read is true
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Everything that we this isn't that this isn't the fantasy you might talk to some people who say this This sounds just like a fantasy.
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This isn't a fantasy. This is true. This is future history that is going to come and And John makes certain of that by saying this is trustworthy and true
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Thank God on the throne tells John. He says I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end
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The Lord promises to give from the spring of the water of life without payment This is the forever spiritual water that Jesus talked about in John chapter 4 verses 13 and 14 when he was telling the
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Samaritan woman about Salvation and this water will always satisfy you forever
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Then in verse 7 the one who conquers is the one who has trusted in Christ when
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Christ saved you You became a conqueror along with him over sin
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Satan and death and that's a marvelous reality to understand.
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We are conquerors in Christ At the end of verse 7 we read that we will be
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God's Son Let me think of it this way Jesus is is like the biological heir to the father
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And scripture talks about us as adopted. We are adopted into The family of God obviously
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Jesus never had a beginning But just for the sake of the illustration Jesus is the natural heir and we are the adopted ones who are who are brought into God's family and God Calls us his children.
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We are sons and daughters of Him and that's what
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Romans chapter 8 verses 14 through 17 says it says for all who are led by the Spirit of God are
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Sons of God for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry of a father the
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Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and If children than heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him
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So we are adopted into his family and we are promised an inheritance
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Jesus receives the inheritance and because we are united to him. We receive the inheritance also on the other hand
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The unbelievers experience will be the exact opposite. The unbelievers experience is going to be horrible verse 8 describes this
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It describes their inheritance verse 8 said as for the cowardly the faithless the detestable as for murderers the sexually immoral
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Sorcerers idolaters and all liars There their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur
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Remember, these are people everybody sins Yes But these are people who are defined by this first John 3 9 says that no one born to God makes a practice of sinning right sin is not a
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Pattern in your life. If you're a believer, you can't be comfortable in sin You you repent you turn you want to grow and you do grow an unbeliever on the other stand on the other hand is
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Comfortable they stay in their sin and and that is someone who will be thrown into The lake of fire and this as the text says this is their inheritance
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So this is our first point This morning set your hope on the world. You have always longed for prepared by your glorious God The first reality you will experience is that you will inhabit a new universe
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And here's the second reality You will live in a new capital city versus 9 through 14.
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So this is where we get to see what the city is going to look like So what we're gonna do is we're gonna read this in four sections four small sections
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The first section is chapter is verse 9 through verse 14, let's read this together
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Then we will talk about what we see here Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me saying
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Come I will show you the bride the wife of the Lamb And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city
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Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God Having the glory of God its radiance like a most rare jewel like a jasper clear as crystal
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It had a great high wall with 12 gates and at the gates 12 angels
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And on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed 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 had twelve foundations and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the
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Lamb the angel
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Who poured out the seven bowls? Tells the Apostle John the same angel
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He tells him that he is going to show him the bride Now some think the bride here is referring to the church because throughout scripture.
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That is what the bride is referred to as However The a the angel here.
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He's not describing the church. He's describing the city and We will see that with the upcoming description of the city
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And what verse 10 says is that he was carried away in the spirit? And I think what this means is not that he had a dream like he started to see something that God showed him
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But he was that he was actually taken away by the spirit to heaven to see this vision
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So this is remarkable to think about and what he says in verse 11 is that the city carries the glory of God with it
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God is great in this city. The New Jerusalem is going to be great. It's going to reflect his greatness
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John says that it's radiance is like a most rare jewel like a jasper clear as crystal
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And if you don't know what a jasper is a jasper is a diamond Okay, so it's gonna be a place full of diamonds
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And when you see a jewel it shines and when it shines, it's quite a sight to see
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The diamond on Brianna's wedding ring belonged to my grandma Dorothy and when she passed away
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We held on to it. And so I bought a ring band for her. But but the diamond she has is from my grandma
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And when we got it appraised we learned that it was a rare diamond that was worth a lot
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When my grandfather purchased the diamond he had no idea How nice it was but this many years later it that it becomes known with advances in technology the whole city is going to dazzle with these diamonds
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And remember if you see Brianna's ring in certain places or any of the women here who have rings in certain places
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It really shines it Dazzles and the city is going to be like this
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Then in verse 12 we learn of the dimensions the city had a great high wall with 12 gates so in other words, there are 12 entrances into this city and exits
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For people to come and go at each gate There will be an angel and verse 13 tells us that there are three gates for each direction north south east and west
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Verse 14 tells us the wall of the city had 12 foundations These strong foundations holding the walls up It will be read in verse 12
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Is that each gate there will be the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and verse 14 says?
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the 12 names of the 12 Apostles Earlier in the certain series. I explained to us that there's a distinction between Israel and the church and I think and we see that right here
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There are the 12 tribes of Israel and then we see the 12 Apostles these two peoples of God They're gonna have their names written on These walls and so this is the second reality we see in our text.
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The second reality is this you will experience a new Sorry, I missed you will live in a new capital city.
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Okay, that's what we're seeing here. That's the second reality The third reality is this You will encounter the most marvelous city ever
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Imagined. Okay. Now we get to the best part verses 15 through 21 This is what
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John sees and The one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls the city lies
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Four square its length the same as its width and he measured the city with it with his rod 12 ,000 stadia its length and width and height are equal.
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He also measured its wall 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angels measurement
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The wall was built of Jasper while the city was pure gold like clear glass
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The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel The first was
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Jasper the second sapphire the third a gate the fourth emerald the fifth onyx the sixth carnelian
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The seventh crystallite the eighth barrel the ninth topaz the tenth crystal praise the eleventh
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Jacket and the twelfth aminus and the twelve gates were twelve pearls
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Each of the gates made of the single pearl and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass
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So what we see here That the angel was the one with John as he saw this vision and the angel is the one who had the measuring rod in his hand as verse 15 tells us
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Everything is so beautiful Even the measuring stick the angel holds is gold the angel is going to tell him the dimensions of the city and these dimensions are jaw -dropping as We are about to see
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I think when you read it, you don't realize it at first But then when you realize what these things mean
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That's where our jaw drops what verse 16 says is the city lies four square
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The city is as long as it is wide The city is the shape of a cube
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Just like the inner sanctuary of the old testament tabernacle and temple the angel measured the length width and height at 12 ,000 stadia
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And you may have a footnote in your Bible next to the word stadia to see what that means 12 ,000 stadia is about 1 ,380 miles
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Okay, think about that 1 ,380 miles So let's do the math here to see how big this city is
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The New Jerusalem the capital city of heaven is 2 million square miles
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To say that that is enormous is an understatement The United States is 3 .8
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million square miles and that includes, Alaska So this capital city of heaven is over half the size of the
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United States That's a big city The largest city area wise in the world is
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New York City which has an area of about 4 ,600 square miles and the
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New Jerusalem is going to be about 2 million square miles So I mean this is it's not even worth comparing them.
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One is just a speck and one is enormous So our jaws should drop and some believe that all of the
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Saints will live in this giant city and The billions there will be would fit
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But at minimum we know that this will be the central place of activity on the new earth
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All right So if you like living in the country you can live in the country and then and then you can also have a home in the city as well
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In verse 17 says that the wall surrounding the city is 144 cubits a
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Cubit is 18 inches. This means that the wall is 72 yards thick
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That's a thick wall. That's about three -fourths of a football field As I mentioned earlier this city is going to be full of the most precious material the most precious materials imagined in Verse 18.
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We read that the wall is built of jasper as we learned earlier jasper is a diamond
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Then we learned that the city is pure gold Transparent another word for transparent is clear.
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It's clear as glass When I take this to mean is that the buildings of the city are gold it's just gonna shine gold everywhere
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Think about the history of the world how? People how hungry people have been to find gold and this whole city is gonna be full of gold
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But the gold that we see in our world is not clear This gold is going to be different.
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It's going to be clear transparent gold What a what a sight this will be and I love seeing the light
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Shine off of things in our world because you can see the sparkle Especially when it's going down at night or even in the morning when it's coming up that angle of the
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Sun where things just shine Our world is heavenly in so many ways everywhere you turn we see glimpses of The new earth we see glimpses of heaven
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It is heavenly and it points to heaven. It's not heaven, but it is a taste of heaven
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And this is what CS Lewis CS Lewis the course he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia and lots of Christian books
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He talked about how creation points to God and he's one of the best people in human history to tell us how the creation points to God and the way he wrote it was so eloquent and He said what must be the quality of that being who's far off and momentary flashes of light are like this
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One's mind runs back up the Sun beam to the Sun So whenever we see something in creation
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If that points to God, that's the Sun beam and the Sun represents God everything creation points to God When we see beauty in this world, we need to think of the greatness of God and how everything is a testimony of his greatness the glory of this world is a faint reflection of the glory that is to come and May we keep that in mind as we live in this world.
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The whole city is the New Jerusalem here It's going to be sparkling with light
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Radiant light of God's glory and what verse 19 and 20 tell us is that the foundations of the wall?
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Will be adorned by every kind of jewel These are 12 jewels and each of these has different colors
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So as the light shines from the throne of God each of these are going to shine And what a beautiful sight it will be in verse 21
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We read that each of the gates will have a single pearl in each of these pearls once again This is a jaw -dropping figure.
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They're gonna be 1 ,400 miles high each pearl 1 ,400 miles high
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So as we have seen this is going to be a remarkable city Why do we live for this world if this is her future and how pathetic the things we settle for in this life
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See us lose once again he won he once said we settle For the mud pies on this on the shore instead of the holiday at the sea
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So often that is so true So set your hope on the world you have always longed for prepared by your glorious God The third reality that you will experience is that you will encounter the most marvelous city ever
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Imagined okay the fourth reality is this you will see the glory of God verses 22 through 27 and this is the best part
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This is what John saw and I saw no Temple in the city for its temple is the
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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 gives it light and its lamp is the
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Lamb By its light will the nation's walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it and its gates will never be
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Shut by day and there will be no night there They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it nor anyone
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Who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life?
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So we read here that there's no temple The old Jerusalem had a temple, but this one does not this is because God will once again dwell with mankind and there's no need for a temple because Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins this temple was this this bridge between God and sinful man
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But Jesus is that bridge and so there is no need for a temple in The age to come in verse 23 tells us that the city will have no need for the
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Sun to shine on it like we need to have For it for us to have day in this present world
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There will be no need for the moon to light up the earth at night and this is so because The glory of God's light is going to shine from the throne in the
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New Jerusalem And it's going to be so bright that there's going to be no need for the
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Sun nor the moon and sometimes What people say is that?
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There's this means that there's going to be no Sun and moon I don't think that's true because there's going to be a universe and in a universe you have
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Sun moon and stars and planets and the new universe is going to have those things
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It's it all the text is saying is that is that in the New Jerusalem There's going to be no need for it because the light from the throne of God is going to be so bright
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That we don't need the Sun and the moon and so there's going to be light 24 hours a day in the new in the
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New Jerusalem And this made me think of my time in Alaska when I was younger We visited Alaska this time of year in June and guess what
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I didn't get dark I mean you could go outside at 2 in the morning. It was light This is what the New Jerusalem will be like it'll always be light and Verse 24 tells us that that the
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Kings bring their glory into heaven So I think that there there's the ethnic groups that exist in the world right now
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I believe that there still will be in the age to come But I think what we see in our world today is that there's this there's this over emphasis on What our differences with ethnic groups and And there isn't enough emphasis on what we have in common right we're all created in the image of God and as Christians We're all one in Christ Yes, there are differences with ethnic groups
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But our culture is emphasized into the point where it's actually dividing us like wait you're different from me
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Well, then we can't unite them instead of saying you know what we're all created in the image of God And if you're a believer in Christ, we're all one in Christ and so Even though we have these differences.
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It's secondary to the wonderful things we have in common That we that we bear the image of God that we reflect
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Jesus Christ that we're united to him And what verse 25 tells us is that the gates will never be shut
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There won't be no need to shut the gates because there's going to be no thieves breaking in there's going to be no war
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There's going to be no invaders So the gates will just be to to separate the city from the country from the outside world
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But they're not there for protection like we see in the world that we live in in verse 26 we read that the kings of the earth past or present will bring their glory into the city and the only one
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Who will be glorified above all else will be God himself and Jesus Christ as he sits on the throne
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Now verse 27 Says something very important And I've already alluded to this a few times
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This city will only be inhabited by the righteous The righteous as I have mentioned several times are those who are redeemed by the blood of Christ Everyone in here who knows
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Christ and these people have been given a new nature. Will they were they will never sin again
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The only ones who are in this city are those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life And we talked about the
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Lamb's Book of Life last week. These are the inhabitants of this new earth Everyone else will be excluded forever from this glorious place
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And if you want to talk about missing out on something This is missing out right here
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Missing and it's a tragedy For anyone to miss out on this glorious place that God has planned that the
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Creator has planned for those who love him So set your hope on the world You have always longed for prepared by your glorious God and the fourth reality is this you will experience the glory of God And here's the last one here
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Thank you for sticking with me here You will enjoy God forever more verses 1 through 5 of Revelation 22
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Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life bright as crystal Flowing from the throne of God and of the
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Lamb through the middle of the street of the city Also on either side of the river the tree of life with its 12 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 it be or there be anything accursed
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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 night will be no more
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They will need no light of lamp or Sun for the Lord. Their God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever
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So we see here in verse 1 That there's a river flowing from the throne and on each side of the river there's going to be the tree of life and the text says that this is for the healing of The nations and it says that there's 12 different kinds of fruit so this is gonna these are gonna be trees that are full of variety that people are going to be able to enjoy and This tree of life
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Symbolizes this eternal life that God's people enjoy with their
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God And what verse 3 tells us is that there will be no one accursed there but only those who are his and they will worship him forever as Verse 4 says the redeemed will see his face
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All the redeemed all everyone who is bought by the blood of Christ throughout history will be able to see him
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We'll be able to see this light shining from the throne because We will be holy and we will be able to dwell with the holy will be able to dwell with God We will have his perfection
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And what we learned reading scripture is that if anyone saw God in the present age what what happened to them
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If you saw God in his full glory, what would happen to you? You would die in the age to come it won't be so we will be able to gaze upon his glory and Not die it but instead enjoy him
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Forever and this will be so because we will have an indestructible body that will be able to enjoy him and we will be able to dwell in his presence forever because we have no sin and his presence will be shown through this brightest of all lights and This will will be the place where Christ is seated forever
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So as we already saw there will be no night there But there will be this very bright light that will shine always
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Forever more and this is the place where you want to be So here is the closing here
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Set your hope on the world you have always longed for prepared by your glorious God And we've seen five realities in Revelation 21 in the beginning of Revelation 22
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You will inhabit a new universe You will live in a new capital city you will encounter the most marvelous city ever imagined
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You will see the glory of God and you will enjoy your God forever more
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In this sermon series where we saw a lot of doom and gloom
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The end times that's what it is, right? God is bringing his judgment on this world and we look at the world
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We live in right now Judgment is coming right and we need to seek God During this time and he has a glorious future promised
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For his people and what we need to do in the present is that we need to live
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Faithfully, but the whole goal of this sermon series has been that we would anticipate
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This new world that we would anticipate Jesus Christ coming to this earth and reigning forever
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And so there's a lot of details that you've received during this sermon series, but what
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I want you to take away from it most of all is Anticipating that this is coming Eagerly longing for it to come and and what that does is it makes you follow
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Christ all the more Closely as we wait and look forward to these promises from Holy Scripture Okay, so that concludes this surprise sermon series that took
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I think 13 or 14 weeks We started in March Next Sunday, we will move back into Matthew in Matthew chapter 5 and I look forward to opening that with you
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We will be looking at Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 through 42 At this time was bow our heads in prayer
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Father in heaven, what a wonderful God you are and what a wonderful place that you have promised for your people
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And Lord as we navigate the difficulties of life the confusion of life You Have these promises that we must hold on to and and I pray
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Lord that everyone in this room Would follow the narrow path of following you and that each one would reach this city
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Holy and blameless before you as you Perfect us in the future as our as our sanctification as this growth and holiness is completed
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Cause us to persevere Lord bring us to this place bring us to this finish line and in the meantime
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Lord encourage us encourage us and may we reflect you more while we're here and may we
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Anticipate all these events that are coming in the future. What a wonderful God you are And I pray that the
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Spirit would meet each one here right where they're there at to move in each one's heart