From Driven Out to Beckoned Back

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 17th chapter.

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Jesus said, As you,

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Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

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The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,

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I in them, you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me.

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Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

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O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

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I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ. Today is the final

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Sunday of Easter. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, so what are we going to do with our texts today?

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We're going to be in Revelation, but in order to understand what's going on here, we'll engage in a little of biblical nerddom kind of thing here.

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And believe me when I tell you, the sermon isn't really about solving a nerd problem, but let me throw it out there to see what you guys think of this.

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So John, at the end of the book of Revelation, verse 18, says, I warn everyone who hears the words and the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them,

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God will add to him the plagues described in this book. Which book?

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The book of Revelation or the whole Bible? Now, see, now we've done it.

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There's a whole army of people on one side of this who say, oh, this is only talking about Revelation.

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And then there's a whole army of people who say, no, no, no, no, no, it's talking about the whole Bible. And I'm with the camp that says it's about the whole

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Bible. And what we'll do is we'll explain why that is, and then when you see it, you'll say, yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.

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You'll note then that there's a warning here about adding to and taking away from the prophecy of this book.

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Of course, we could always just point out that God knew that the book of Revelation would be at the back end of our

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Bibles today. He just knew it was going to be tacked on to the back end there, and this warning is about that.

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But it's a little bit more compelling than that. But in order for us to do that, I've got to teach you something about how outlines work in Jewish thought, and then we're going to take a look at Genesis parts of 1, parts of 2, and parts of 3, and then you'll kind of see how it all works.

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So here's the idea. Here's the idea. In our way of thinking, when we were in grade school and we learned how to outline, it's a very linear process.

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Roman numeral 1, and then underneath that capital letter A, and then the number 1, and then small letter

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A, and it just goes in a line. And then when you're done with that thought, you go to the next big thought, and then the same thing happens.

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A very linear, it starts here and ends here, and when you get to the end, you're really disconnected from the beginning.

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That's not how Jewish thought works, and it's weird because God inspired this entire book, so it makes you wonder.

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God likes to engage in these things. So a Jewish outline is called a chiasm. And if you hear the word chasm in there, that's kind of the idea.

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So it kind of starts like this. You have your main point, your starting point, and then points build off of it in this direction, and then when you hit the center, then it starts to build back out so that what ends up happening, each point, point number 1 has a mirror opposite at the end of the argument, and then down the line.

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It's interesting how that works. Do you know the Bible works that exact same way? The same themes that are in the book of Genesis, in the opening chapters, are the same themes at the end of the

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Bible in the book of Revelation, what we just read. I'll kind of demonstrate it this way. Let me throw this out as a thought.

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Again, we're doing some nerdy things here. My apologies. I happen to be a nerd, not a recovering one either.

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I am not in therapy for this. But if we listen to the opening chapter of Genesis, opening sentences, it says,

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And God saw that the light was good. And then God separated the light from the darkness.

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The light he called day, the darkness he called night, and there was evening and there was morning the first day. Now, not a trick question.

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If you have a Bible that's open, you can answer the question. What day did God create the sun, the moon, and the stars?

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It wasn't day 1. 4.

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Day 4. And so the evolutionist sits there and goes, Look at you Christians. You guys are morons, man.

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Come on. He didn't even create the sun, the moon, and the stars until day 4. And what day did he create vegetation?

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Our favorite things like, you know, broccoli, brussel sprouts. Yeah. Hey, hey, I saw that. Yeah. What day did he create sugar beets?

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What day did he create corn and edible beans? What day did he create that stuff?

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Day 3. Now, we all know that edible beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and sugar beets don't grow without the sun because you need the sun for photosynthesis.

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And so the evolutionist sits there and goes, See? See? See? This doesn't make any sense. This is silly.

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But here's the idea. You're looking at it only at the beginning. You have to look at the end because there's something really going on here.

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Keep that in mind. We'll talk about the light that will be in the new earth. Now, all of that being said, remember these things regarding Adam.

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When Adam was created, and it's in chapter 2 we get this account that it talks about how

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God made man. And so let me find this real quick here. There's chapter 1.

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And here we go. Chapter 2. Here's what it says in starting at verse 4 of chapter 2.

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These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that Yahweh Elohim made the earth and the heavens, when no bush of the field was yet in the land.

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And the land here is referring to the area around the Garden of Eden.

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No small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for Yahweh Elohim had not caused it to rain on the land. There was no man to work the ground.

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A mist was going up from the land and watering the whole face of the ground. And Yahweh Elohim formed the man of the dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

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Now, consider the picture here. It's amazing when you think about it. God, from the earth that he has created, now makes a mud man, if you would, a man from the dust, from the substance of the earth, forms his body, and there it is, lifeless, and without a belly button.

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I think that's an important thing to note here, too, because he didn't have a mommy. But there it is, lifeless.

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And so Christ himself comes, and he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.

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Now, pause for a second here. Have any of you seen the cartoon Frosty the Snowman? It seems a little out of place here.

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I know it's June, but work with me here. So you put the magic hat on Frosty, and what's the first thing he says?

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Happy birthday, right? Yeah, see, that's kind of a picture here, because there's this lifeless snowman, and then something happens, and he comes to life.

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Same thing with Adam, this lifeless body. And now Jesus breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.

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His eyes open. What's the first thing he sees? The face of Christ.

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The first thing, because there's Jesus. He opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees, the very first memory of Adam is the face of Jesus.

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It's amazing when you think about it. Consider the implications, and this comes into our Revelation text as well.

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But we all know how the story continues. Now, a little bit of a note here. It talks about a river that flowed out of Eden, and it divided into four rivers.

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It's almost as if this river that flows out of Eden, and it's fascinating that it does, because this is the place of worship.

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This is the place where God created. It divides into four headwaters, almost as if they're heading off to the four different compass points of the earth, to the north, to the south, to the east, and the west.

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Remember last week when we saw the heavenly Jerusalem coming out of heaven, and there were three gates on each side of it, this perfect square coming out of heaven.

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Three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the east, three gates on the west, as if God is saying, come from all of the earth here.

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And so you'll note here the direction is reversed, but note again, there's a river in our text, in Revelation.

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We'll talk about that. But then we know that the story takes an evil turn, a very terrible turn, when the serpent tempts our first parents,

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Adam and Eve, and they, and note here, they were told by God, actually

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Adam was told by God, that he could eat of any tree in the garden, any tree, except for the tree that was in the midst, the center of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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And next to it was the tree of life, kind of two trees, if you would, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life.

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And so Adam, after the creation of Eve, she was formed from the rib of Adam, and after she was formed,

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Adam conveyed to her what the word of the Lord was regarding what trees they can eat of, and things like that, and as we know how the story goes, the serpent came and tempted them, and they both ate of the tree that God had forbidden them to eat from.

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And because of this, because of what Adam did, we've all been plunged into misery.

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And so note then, in the midst of this, while God is handing out His punishments for their disobedience,

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He begins with the serpent and works His way up to Adam.

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It's kind of fascinating. There's a little chiasm there in Genesis 3. But in His cursing of the serpent, we hear this amazing promise.

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And He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel. And so here we have the first promise of somebody who would actually defeat the serpent who had defeated our parents.

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But note then that when this is all done, there's a fascinating thing that happens, and it's terrible when you consider the implications.

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So after all of the punishments are handed out, it says this in verse 22 of Genesis 3,

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Then Yahweh Elohim said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.

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Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever.

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And it's interesting here. There's a dash in your pew Bible. And there's a reason here.

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This is an incomplete thought. Consider what's happening. God is now within the council of the

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Trinity discussing the implications, the horrifying implications of what

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Adam has done. And now the thought comes, oh, whoa, if he eats of the tree of life and lives forever, he will live forever in a fallen state.

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And so the sentence itself is incomplete. The thought tails off, and we don't get the rest of the thought.

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It's as if it's too horrifying to think of. Too wicked of an outcome that even

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God can't even utter just how evil that would be. And then it says in verse 23,

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Therefore Yahweh Elohim sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

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He drove out the man. And the idea behind driving him out, it's not like you need to leave.

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It's like get out. Get out now. Leave immediately. That's how strong this is because the thought has come to God's mind.

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I'm not even going to give you a second to even take of that tree of life. Get out now.

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Driving him out. Driving him hard. You think of people driving cattle.

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That's what's going on here. And so he drove him out. And at the east of the garden, he placed a chair of him and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

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Now this is our first thoughts then. First complete picture in the

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Bible. Opening chapters of Genesis and you can see the themes. And so using a chiasm, this is as dark and horrible as an outcome as you can have.

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So you've got a river. You've got the face of Christ. You have light without sun, moon, and stars.

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And you have Adam and Eve driven away from the tree of life. That's your dark picture.

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Now, God is going to flip everything and at the very end of the Bible, in a chiastic way, we're going to see this whole thing.

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All of these themes. And we're going to see them again. But they're going to be reversed in a beautiful, beautiful picture.

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And the implications for us and the comfort that it provides for us are amazing. So Revelation 22.

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So then the angel showed me the river of the water of life.

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Bright as crystal. Flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. There's that river again.

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And Ezekiel prophesies about this river. Says that the river itself will flow from the temple of God and it will flow into the

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Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea will be the Dead Sea no more. That people will be able to fish from it and that fish will team within the

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Dead Sea because of the waters of life flowing from the throne of God. It's a beautiful picture. And this is again a picture to remind us even of our baptism.

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Where the water of life in the font mixed with the blood of Christ takes away our sin.

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Washes us and makes us clean. So note then the river shows up.

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And through the middle of the street of the city also on either side of the river. Listen to what makes a reappearance.

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The tree of life is now back. The tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit.

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That's quite a tree. 12 kinds. Usually trees have one kind. Unless you do something silly where you graft into one tree a whole bunch of different types of fruit.

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Normally apple trees produce apples. But this thing has 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month.

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What an amazing tree. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will 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. And listen to this.

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They will see his face. You see Adam saw the face of God. And so did

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Eve. That was the first thing he saw. Now taking a look at our congregation here. I know some of us are a little older than others.

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I'll pick on Don. Don, have you seen the face of God yet? You're not that old. David? No?

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Dwayne? You missed it by that much. Just checking.

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I don't expect any of the younger people to have seen him. I haven't seen the face of Christ either. And that's an interesting thing if you think about it.

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It's very abnormal because we were created in his image. But our fall into sin has made it so God has hid his face from us presently.

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And so once again, humanity will see God's face.

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And so you hear in the words of the benediction, May the Lord bless you and keep you.

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Make his face to shine on you and be gracious unto you. To see the face of God is no small thing.

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It's everything. And so you'll note here this picture then. Those of us who because of Adam and Eve's fall into sin have never seen the face of God, although they did.

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Now we too will see God's face. And his name will be on our foreheads.

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And listen to this. The night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun.

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For the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. Ah, no need for sun, moon, and stars.

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It's Genesis 1 all over again. And notice the direction is running in complete reverse. Going back to let there be light and there was no sun, moon, and stars.

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And yet there was light. So he said to me, These words, they are trustworthy, and they are true.

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It's a happy story. This should make us happy. Oh, poor thing.

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So these words are trustworthy, and they are true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants, and listen to the word, what must soon take place.

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And I always like to note that God's idea of soon is a little quicker, is a little slower than our idea of soon.

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If I tell my wife I'll be there in a minute, that usually means five. And she's learned how to multiply. So when

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God says, Christ says I'm coming soon, he's a lot like me. I'm more like Jesus than you know.

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That's some terrible self -justification, isn't it? Yeah, boo. Okay. So behold,

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I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps, who guards the word of the prophecy of this book.

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And you can see now, because the book of Revelation is the bookend to the book of Genesis, and so beautifully so, that the book that is being referred to here is not merely the book of Revelation, but it's the entire

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Scripture itself. And truly, blessed is the one who keeps and guards the prophecy of Scripture, all of the

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Bible, because all of the Bible is the story of what Christ has done for us, to redeem us, because of his great love for us, a fallen and sinful race, made in his image, he has had pity on us and forgiven us of our sins, and all of the

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Scriptures testify about him. So is it any wonder then that blessed are those who do keep the prophecy of this entire book, the

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Bible. And so John, the one who heard and saw these things, when he heard and saw them, he fell down, kind of foolishly too, to worship at the feet of the angel who had showed them to me.

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But notice the reaction of the angel. The angel said to him, You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book.

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Worship God. Now remember last week, when we took a look at that fellow who had been born blind, and that beautiful picture, after this guy had been excommunicated, put on trial twice, and then excommunicated, because why?

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Because Jesus gave him his sight back. And he defended Jesus. How dare he do that?

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So he was put out of the synagogue, cast out. Jesus finds him, and although he had never seen him, notice the same theme.

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He had never seen him. He does see him. And so Jesus asked him, Do you believe in the Son of Man?

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Who is he, sir, that I should believe in him? He is the one who is talking to you, and you see him.

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And what was his response? I believe. And the text says he worshiped

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Jesus. And notice that Jesus doesn't go, Whoa, whoa, slow down there, dude. I'm just like you.

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No, Jesus accepts worship from people. Why? Because he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

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He is King of kings, Lord of lords, God of God, light of light, very God of very God. And he accepts worship because he is the second person of the

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Holy Trinity. So the angel reminds John, You worship God, don't worship me. So then he said to me,

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Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

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Let the evildoers still do evil, the filthy still be filthy, the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.

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And then Christ again speaks, Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay everyone for what he has done.

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And you hear a phrase like that coming from Jesus. And your first inclination, because you know you're sinful, and you have sinned against God in many different ways, you sit there and go,

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Whoa, I don't want Jesus coming and repaying me. But don't worry, we who are in Christ, we are in Christ.

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He has paid the penalty for our sins. There is no repayment for our sins to be made.

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Christ has paid that all for us. And instead, when he repays us, he will reward us for the good works that we have done, even the weakest and smallest.

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He does not despise. In fact, he cherishes them and rewards them. So he will repay everyone for what he has done.

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And then he assures us, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

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And blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have, listen to these words, the right to the tree of life.

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Again, a picture of baptism. Each and every one of us have soiled our robes horribly. Born dead in trespasses and sins.

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We've added sin upon sin even to Adam and Eve's sin which was imputed to us.

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And our robes have been filthy in the muck and the mire of our sin. And here, we have washed our robes.

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All of our sin and its filth washed away down the sewer, down the drain, into the fires of hell where they belong.

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It's a wonderful picture. So that they might have the right to the tree of life.

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And you'll notice here that no longer is there an angel guarding the way to the tree of life. But now the talk is, you who are in Christ, you have a right to the tree of life.

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You're not being barred at all. And you'll note that the direction is going completely the opposite way.

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So that they might enter the city, the holy city by the gates. And outside then are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters.

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Everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Everyone who refused to believe and to be forgiven.

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Their sin remains. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches.

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I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star. And so you note that Jesus himself is even putting his stamp of approval on these things, telling us who he is.

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This is most certainly true. Nobody can overturn these words. They will come to pass.

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And now the opposite happens. Remember Adam and Eve driven out. Get out. Get out now.

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Get out quickly. I'm borrowing the way. Listen to what this text says. The spirit and the bride say, no longer driven out.

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God is now beckoning us. Come. Come to the new Jerusalem. Come to the tree of life.

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Come and eat. Come and be healed. You who have washed your robes in the river of life, in the blood of the

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Lamb. Come. Let the one who hears then, let everyone else know and say to everyone, you come too.

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

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What an amazing reversal. All because of God's great love for us.

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Driven out because of sin. Christ bleeding and dying for us. And you'll note then, remember there were two trees.

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Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Tree of life. Now another tree stands between those two trees.

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And that tree is the cross. The cross of Christ. The tree of death.

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You think of it this way. The tree of the ultimate consequences of the knowledge of good and evil.

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The tree of death. This is the place where Christ offered Himself for your sins and for mine.

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Bled and died in our place. Suffered and languished. And gave up His Spirit and died.

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Suffering the wrath of God in our place. That tree now, the tree of death, we today at the

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Lord's Supper will be eating of the fruit of that tree. And that is the fruit of the tree that washes away the stain and the sin that we have committed and have inherited from Adam and Eve.

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So that rather than being barred from the tree of life, we are welcomed and beckoned to it.

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The cross is the tree that stands in the place of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So that we can have and eat of the tree of life.

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So the Spirit says, come, come, come. The one who is thirsty, come.

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No longer hang out in the shadows. Stop living and lurking in the dark. Come into the light.

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Be forgiven. Wash your robes. He's provided for you to be cleaned. Come and eat and live and reign forever and ever.

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And is it any wonder then that there's this firm and stern warning. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of Scripture, of the

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Bible itself. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.

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If anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share from the tree of life and the holy city which are described in this book.

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Is it any wonder again that God says that those who are pastors have a stricter judgment. We are not to add to nor are we to take away from the prophecies of Scripture.

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All of them point us to Christ. All of them tell us to repent of our sin and our rebellion and our wickedness.

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All of the Scriptures assure us of God's mercy, grace and forgiveness. And all of them teach us to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

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In love towards God and in fervent love towards one another. As Jesus today prayed that we would be united, perfectly united, one with each other.

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One with Christ who's one with the Father. One with each other. Is it any wonder then?

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This is the whole story of Scripture. So, firm warning to those who would add to or take away from the book of prophecy.

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Very firm one. But now it ends with these words. He who testifies to these things says, surely

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I am coming soon. Jesus has testified to these things and he says,

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I am coming soon. Really soon. I'll be there in a minute. However long that takes.

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Right? And our response then is, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. And again, that address is

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