Revelation chapter 20 verse 11 is where I want to begin reading. Chapter 20 verse 11 through 21 verse 8. Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire." This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them. And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying. or pain, the first things have passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he said, Write, for these words are faithful and true. Then he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Well, may the Lord add his blessing to our time together in those verses today. Well, let's pray. Our gracious and everlasting King, our creator and our redeemer and God, apart from Christ, you would be our judge, our dread. We would hide from you rather than draw near to you. We would use religion as a covering rather than as a path to walk with you. God, we thank You that though we have sinned against You and have placed ourselves in the camp of Your enemies, You have treated us astonishingly, mercifully, graciously. From the purest form of undeserved love, You have sought us out. You have sent Your Son to bear our iniquities, to carry the law that we have refused and ignored. You have placed Him on the cross where He became our sin that we, through faith, might become His righteousness. You raised Him from the dead that all creation would know that Your people will be justified through Him, that His sacrifice was accepted. You send Your Spirit to the place that murdered the Son and You conquer our hearts. You open our eyes, You warm our hearts, You free our wills. God, we come to You this morning to lay our praises before Your throne. We come to plead with You for our needs. God, we ask that You would look Look at our land, how desperately needy we are from President and Supreme Court down to the newest child that was born. God, we pray that you would be merciful, that you would in wrath remember mercy, that while you are dealing with us, God, that you would grant us a repentance, that you'd begin with your churches, that you'd begin with us. that hearts that are cold would be stirred out of their indifference, that a sight of Christ would stir in us a desire to run to him, to walk with him as closely as possible, to know you in ways we've never known you before, to lay before you areas of our life that have never been brought under your control. God, we pray that you would today as the gospel is preached, as your word is opened all across our land, all across this world, that you would open people's eyes, that you would cause your word to be like a sword that would cut through the bands, that it would be like fire that purifies and a hammer to break the rock. God, we pray that things that are said today would stick in people's hearts, they would be seed planted in hearts that are already prepared, that it wouldn't be the flash-in-the-pan kind of response that we've given you so often. It wouldn't be the kind of response that lasts until the cares of life choke it out. God, we want our lives to be wholly responsive to you. We want the realities that you reveal in Scripture to be the thing that holds our eyes, that captures our imagination. God, we want your reality to be the lodestone that pulls us into the right way of living. Father, we pray for our families again that you would work in them in such a way that they would be a very natural, genuine, and though imperfect, a wonderful picture of you. God, we want nothing to do with a religion that we can manufacture, a religion that we create, a religion that we maintain by a list of rules that we've invented, fences that we put up for ourselves. But God, we certainly need the religion that you give, life, reality. grace, enduring, enduring faith. God, we pray that you would help us to cling to the testimony of Christ all the way to the end. Father, we ask that you would do these things in our hearts and in the hearts of those that we've never met. We pray that your kingdom would spread and that your will would be done. God, we ask that you would do this because it is your kingdom, and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Revelation chapter 20 verse 11 through chapter 22 verse 5, we have three final scenes which really bring us to the goal of everything that God has been doing and everything that the Bible has been revealing about God and what He's done in creation and what He's done in judging, what He's done in guiding, what He's done in saving. And in these three last scenes coming to the end of everything, really we see that for the glory of God and for the good of the believer, the best is yet to come. The best displays of the glory of God are ahead of us, not behind us. And I find that hard to really grasp because I think we have the tendency to look back, we see what God has done in the past. God creating, even before creation, God in eternity past designing a way that he would rescue a people which no man could number. Then creation, God calling all things into existence. Then sin enters in. The promise of the coming Messiah. The incarnation. Bethlehem. What an astonishing moment where God unites His deity to humanity. There isn't any other moment in human history like that. It won't be repeated. Then we see Christ on the cross. Certainly no other moment like that. The God-man becomes the sin-bearer. He that is perfect, divine, and man becomes our sin, bears our sin that we might be given the righteousness of Christ. The ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father to rule over all the worlds alone. All these are wonderful milestones in the unfolding of the display of God. This is who He is. This is the worth and the majesty of that one unique being. And yet, the best is yet to come, because all of these, as wonderful as they are, As inexplicable as they are, they're leading to a goal. And in a very simple way, we could say it this way. It's good to have preparation. It's good to have events that are wonderful, but events that are wonderful because they're leading to something better. It's the goal that's what we look for. The old creation is about to be undone. A new creation brought into existence. A home will be made for the bride of Christ for the church. And the transformed and completed work of God in the heart and the life of the Christian will be pictured in these passages. Now, all of these really explain Ephesians 2.7. God saves us. God brings us from spiritual death to life. He saves us by grace. He unites us to Christ. He raises us with Christ. He seats us with Christ. And then in the verse 7 we read, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. And so what we see at the end of Revelation chapter 20 and into chapter 21 and 22, It is God showing the surpassing riches of His grace in His kindness toward His people. Now what we read in these passages is symbolic, like the rest of the book of Revelation. So we don't want to take these things literally, especially next week when we look at the picture of the bride, who is actually pictured not as a woman, but as a city, a New Jerusalem. We're not headed to a new Jerusalem. That's the picture of the completion of the bride of Christ. We'll look at that next week. But even though these are symbols, we do have to remind ourselves that the reality in biblical symbolism, the reality is always greater than the symbol. It's not an exaggeration. Now, three major scenes remain for us to look at, and each of them are the end of a process, all right? So there's nothing beyond these. There is the final judgment in chapter 20 verse 11 to the end of the chapter. There isn't another judgment that follows. And we have looked at many examples of the judgment. Remember these cycles. So we've seen judgment, even the final judgment, we've looked at it before many times. But now this is the final picture of the final judgment. There isn't anything beyond this when it comes to judgment. And then in chapter 21, verse 1 through verse 8, we see the new creation or the new home, the homeland that God creates for the bride. There won't be anything more or beyond that in the Bible with regard to describing what God has prepared for us. And then finally, what we'll see next week in verse 9 of chapter 21 to chapter 22, verse 5, we'll see the picture of the completed church, of the beauties, of the completion, of sanctification in a believer, what we call glorification, when Christ presents us complete before the Father, and then we see that completed church described in these wonderful symbols. Remember, all of these are gifts. Remember chapter one of this book? All of these are gifts that the Father has given to the Son, and the Father and the Son together give to the church through the Holy Spirit. They are an expression of His love. In other words, they're things that you and I need if we're Christians. We need these to live out the Christian life. We've got to have something in front of our eyes other than the newest Apple product or the promise of a vacation that's coming. a marriage, a child, whatever the world offers you. There's something that we have to have in front of our eyes that holds us on the course and revelation is a large part of that. Well, let's look at two of those three scenes, the judgment and the home for the bride. So the judgment in chapter 20, verse 11, John says that he saw a great white throne and sitting on that throne is Christ. And from the presence or from his face, all creation is fleeing, but all humanity is being called to Him. Even we've seen in the earlier passages all the enemies of Christ have been dealt with. So all are called now to account. Christ is going to judge them. And all of that is in order to make room for what comes in chapter 21. Now we've talked about this before, but I want to say it again before we look quickly at the judgment. The reason that God is judging is not merely that He will, because He is a just judge, He will deal fairly with every sin, that He will exact a fair payment for every sin, which He will. But the bigger picture of that reason is, in the context of Revelation, is that He is bringing about the restoration of all things. That everything is headed to a glorious ending. That this creation that's groaning under sin will be remade. That the believer that groans and struggles with sin will be completed. But in order to bring all of that about, a new creation and the completion of the church, those that have refused to bow their knee to Christ, who still hate His rule, All of that has to be dealt with. And so there must be judgment in order to finally bring salvation. So it's more than just the judge exacting perfect righteous judgment. It is a very personal thing here. There is the love of the King for His people, the love of His King for His creation, and He is going to do everything that's required in order to bring those to perfection, and that requires judgment. In other words, one aspect of the final judgment that we see is that it is the strength, not merely of righteousness and justice, but it's also the strength of jealousy, of love for a bride who's being mistreated. In the Song of Solomon, the bride says to her husband, put me like a seal over your heart, write my name over your heart, like a seal on your arm, write my name on your arm, For love is as strong as death and jealousy is as severe as shale. Its flashes are the flashes of fire. It is the flame of the Lord. Now that's a very poetic way of saying this. The believer says to God, write my name on your heart. Write my name on your arm. Don't ever forget to love me. Don't ever forget to act on my behalf. God, your love, your jealous love for your people, that they would all be yours, that every aspect of their life would be yours, that all creation that you've made, which has been twisted with sin, would be restored and made perfect. God's jealous love, it's stronger than death or the grave. It's like a flame. One commentator, Dennis Johnson, whose commentary I've really benefited from, very simple, modern writer. This is what he says about judgment and God bringing all this together, the judgment, the new creation, and the completion of the bride, those three things. This is what he says. The consummation of this romance between Christ and his church is what revelation has been about from the start. All the pictures of blood and fire and locusts and smoke, falling stars and trembling earth, a dragon, monsters from the sea and the earth, the scarlet woman. This whole terrifying conflict has been about the divine husband's jealous love for his bride. A love so jealous that he will fight all comers. in order to have her all to himself. A love that's so sacrificial that he will lay down his life to protect her from every threat and every enemy. That's what we've seen. Well, let's look at the judgment and then we'll look at the home made for the bride. What does John see? Well, he sees a throne. Now a throne, we don't have thrones, all right? We have capitals, certainly we have seats of power, but we don't have thrones. But other nations have had thrones. And ancient thrones, seats of power, they tend to reflect the values of the people that were ruled by that monarch. They also reflect the dignity or the wealth of that monarchy. So some thrones, if you go to France and if you look at the ancient thrones of Louis the whatever, I'm not really good with French history, you see these very ornate, beautiful, ornate thrones. If you go and look at the ancient throne of the Britons, the Scots, the Welsh, the English, the Irish, the Britons, it's amazing how different it is. Very different culture, never as ornate as the French culture. When I went to Westminster Abbey, which is a church, an abbey, ancient abbey, ancient monastery, and it is also really kind of a museum. So all these famous people from British history are buried there, and all the kings and queens are buried there, and lords and ladies. So when you go in there, you pay a lot of money and then you get to go in. As long as they're not having a service over here, you're allowed to walk over here and you just go through and you see, here's King Henry V, here's Edward the whatever, here's Henry VIII, here's some of his relatives, you know. I don't know how many got in there actually. And here's this man and this man. It's amazing. Now, in this place with everything roped off that you're not allowed to touch, which I try to ignore those as long as no one's watching. I try to touch everything. There's the ancient throne of the Britons. Now, it is nothing like what you would think. It's wood. covered in gold, but the gold's rubbed off most of it. And it has on this big wood chair with a little gold left on it, it has a spot right under the seat, it has this open compartment. It's about two foot wide, a foot deep and a foot tall. What goes in there? Anybody know? A stone, a rock. called the stone of scone, not the thing you eat, all right? The stone of scone. It's actually a sandstone, red sandstone rock from Scotland that the ancient British kings back as far as the 1200s, if you were coronated as a king, you would sit on this wooden seat and the stone would be placed under you and it was part of the ancient ritual. The last person that that stone was used for was Queen Elizabeth II, who's still the queen. And the next monarch will be crowned on this wooden throne, the gold's all rubbed off, and a rock will be put under the seat. It's so strange, isn't it? It reflects the values of the people. When John sees the throne of Christ, at the end, at the judgment, what it looks like reflects the values of the king. Ancient thrones, when we think of seats of power, you cannot find a country where there has been a seat of power for very long that the throne or the seat of power is not metaphorically stained, at least. Ancient seats of power, all the ancient thrones, that wooden throne that I mentioned, they're all stained. in this way, that at some point in the history of that nation, no matter how much they tried to be a fair monarch or a just leader, there have been decisions that are made where national interests have been allowed to override right and wrong. People thought they were making good decisions that ended up being very bad decisions. Every throne on earth is stained. Even the seat of power, even Washington, D.C., we think our country's very young. We brought up thinking we're the good guys. Every battle, we're always the good guys, all right? Then you hear stories about the Trail of Tears. What was the Trail of Tears about? Why did we do that? begin to realize that even our country, which is just like a little child compared to world history, its throne is stained. Every throne is stained except this one. It's an immense, enormous throne that is pure white. From beginning to end, every choice that God has made in eternity past, all the way into eternity future, every choice that God has made with everyone on planet earth, every choice that God has made with all the angels, every choice He made in the way He created, every choice He's made in the way He has guided human history, every choice that He will now make in judging people in the most severe light, this throne is still unstained. I wonder if you think of it in the same way that John saw it. It's a great test. Deep down, I don't want a church answer. Actually, I don't really want you to answer at all, but just within. This question, deep down, do you think that God is right to judge? Would He be right to judge you? Would He be right to cast you into hell? And the unbelievers, still in the darkness of their deceit, they still believe what sin tells them, that they have a right to do what they want to do. And if they do what they want to do, but they don't hurt a lot of other people, well, God ought to be happy with that. And if they do what they want to do, without hurting a lot of people, and they're religious, God's lucky to have people like us. Do you think if you arrive there and you've heard that question before, what would you say to God? Why should I let you into my heaven? And you start to blabber off all your reasons why you ought to be in heaven and not hell. And Christ says to you, depart from me, I never knew you. Would you say, it's not fair. I deserve to be in heaven. Or would you say, it is horrible, but it's fair. I don't deserve. The believer. is so different than the unbeliever because God has opened our eyes and we've seen that we don't deserve. And yet we've been given so much grace. There's a great white throne. There's a universal call, great and small are gathered. And there's this terrible picture. You remember in chapter six, it says that men called out to the mountains and they asked the mountains to fall on them, to cover them from the look of this judge in second Peter. We read that there will be a day coming like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up. It's all part of the same picture here. Christ is on the throne. The judgment has come and all creation flees his face. It is the undoing of creation. Where will you hide? Where would anyone hide when creation itself is undone? Well, you won't hide in the sea. A person dies, their bodies, their remains are dumped at sea. The sea will give up every one of those people. The grave, death, will give up everyone. There won't be any covering between us and Him. And the judgment will be based on deeds. Now we've seen deeds before mentioned in the previous chapter where there's the great marriage feast of the lamb and his bride and his bride is seen coming there and she's beautiful, her clothes are white. These clothes are a gift from Christ and yet these clothes are also her righteous deeds. That is what God has done inside of the Christian. Not just forgiven, well I'm just a forgiven sinner. That is not what a Christian is. We are forgiven sinners, but we are so much more than that. We are adopted into the family. Now with a new father, it's transforming the way we act, just like an earthly adoption transforms the way children behave. In this new family, we have a new father who is fashioning us. We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. We're being transformed from the inside out. The Christian is different. The Christian wants to obey. Our obedience is imperfect, and it is not the foundation of our peace with God, but it will be there because it's impossible to belong to Christ and not to want to obey him. So there are good works. Here though, the deeds of the unbelievers surround them and it's terrible because all that they've done, even the nice things they've done, it's all been about themselves and they're judged based on those deeds and they're cast into hell. Deeds are important. Why are deeds important? Because they demonstrate what you really are. Do you remember James chapter 2 verse 14 to the end? He says things like this. You say you have faith. You try to show me your faith with your words. I want to show you my faith with my deeds. Faith, he says, without works is useless. It's not that works are earning the love of God, it's that when God invades a life, the first thing we do is we believe Him, and we repent, and we keep believing and repenting the rest of our life. But if we have real faith and if we are truly repentant because God has changed the heart, then one of the evidences that our claim to believe Christ, the evidence that it's not just a bunch of hot air is that there are different deeds, that we live differently than we did before. So Paul can say things in his letters like this, don't live this way because such were some of you. You used to live this way, but now you're different. If there is not that difference, then you have no reason to believe your own profession of faith, and nor will God, and nor should anyone else. Saved by grace does not mean that we don't change. Saved by grace means that it is the undeserved love of God that has captured me. There was nothing in me that attracted it. It is the unsought for, unshakable, unmerited love of God that transforms me. and I am standing before him complete because of his love. But that does change a person, so we act differently. In Matthew 25, before we leave this point, Jesus talks about the coming judgment. He says this, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats. Then the story goes on and he says to one group of people, you are my people. Why do you say that? Because you did this, you did this, you did this. In other words, the way you live demonstrated what you were. Then he has another group of people and he says, you are not my people. Oh, they say, but we're very religious. We preached and we did all kinds of things in your name. No, he says, but you did not do this and this and this. In other words, it was all talk. God pays no attention to what you say. You will be judged on your deeds. So the question that's often asked to people, if God asks you, why should I let you into my heaven, is a completely useless question now. The question is, what about your deeds? What will your deeds say in the end? Will they say that your claim to trust Christ is real or not? So real grace changes a person and the rejection of Jesus Christ always shows up in deeds. All of that, even death and hell, everything now is dealt with. Everything is judged. Everything is put beneath the feet of Christ. Now that leads us to chapter 21, where we're going to see the home that is made for the bride. Do you remember John chapter 14? Jesus is leaving the disciples. They're bothered. He says to them, I have to go away. I'm going to go prepare a place for you. And also, of course, for 2,000 years, he's been preparing people for that place. Now, chapter 21, verses 1 through 8, fleshes that out. What kind of place? Well, we can't fully grasp what that everlasting life will look like, but there are symbols that help us understand. Remember what Peter preached in Acts chapter 3? He said, God raised Christ and made him Lord over all things. He's in heaven. Why isn't he here with us? Why doesn't he come back immediately is the question. And Peter said this in verse 21 of Acts 3. He says, Christ whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration. The restoration of all things about which God by the mouth of the Holy Prophet spoke from ancient times. Christ has been with the Father waiting until the right time to restore all things. In other words, he will make a home for his bride and they will live together there. Now the bride is mentioned in the early verses of this chapter, but she's only mentioned and then the place is going on to be described. And then finally in verse 9 through 22 verse 5, the bride is mentioned again and there she's the big picture. So we're only going to look at the place. I think the simple way of saying it is this, all right? What won't be in the new home of the bride? What will be in the new home of the bride? What won't be in the new existence, in the new creation for a Christian, and what will be. Now, before we get there, the new creation. The Greek has different ways of saying new. So there could be new like this. We could say, I hate that old shirt. It's so ratty and old. I want to go buy a new shirt. Or there could be something like this, that shirt I ripped, I got a new shirt, I tore it or I stained it. And mom says, don't worry, I think I can take care of it. She washes it or she fixes it and she says, it's like new. The second, where you take something that was ruined and you fix it, that's the word here. Now that's very important for the Christian. First of all, You are not heading to an existence where you float around in some spirit ooze and you have a harp and wings. That is not what's ahead for the Christian. You are not going to be in this dematerialized form and in a spirit world floating about. What do you want with that? There will be a physical universe that you will live in. It will be like Eden, but better than Eden. It'll be like the creation we know now, but better. Now that's the point of this word new being, meaning rejuvenated and not something totally different. So you're not going to have an existence, Christian, in eternity where you're living in a place that is totally foreign to what we have here. It'll be like this. It'll be this creation undone and refashioned perfectly. C.S. Lewis's little books, I always think that they're helpful when it comes to this aspect, where he describes for children what would it be like, mountains that are much higher than our mountains, waterfalls that are bigger than our waterfalls, oceans that are bigger, colors that are brighter. I mean, how do you explain it? It will be like this creation. It will be this creation remade. So there will be something similar about it. It will be a physical existence. Now, second, in the same way that your physical body will be the body you have in heaven or in the afterlife, except transformed or glorified and made able to do things it can't do now, but still it's this body. In the same way, it's this creation that's transformed by the work of God at the end. It's unmade and remade. Why? I think one aspect is this. In the end, sin will have nothing to boast over with regard to the Christian's body. These hands, these eyes, these ears, this mouth, this body has been used too often for sin. But it does not lie in a grave the rest of eternity and a new body is created. This body is ultimately and finally rescued from all sins, influences, and ruin. And this will be a trophy of Christ and not a trophy of sin in the grave. And this creation will be, like this body, remade and it will be a trophy of God that He has conquered. Even the ruin that sin has brought to all creation will be reversed, and the creation will be restored, and this universe will be the trophy of God's grace and not the trophy of sin's power. Now, let's look, what won't be there, what will be there. Verse one, what won't be at the home of the new bride, and we have a lot of brides to be, and we have some homes being gotten ready, all right? What won't be at this home? When you get married, when I got married, and we went to a new house, We brought something old, something new, right? I mean, you bring old stuff, you bring new stuff. You bring stuff from your moms, you give your daughters things, and you say, oh, this would look really nice, and they say, oh, great. Some others of us, we give them things that we say, this would look really nice, and they say, thank you, but they hide it until we visit. You know, it comes out, and then it goes back. Old is brought to this new place. In a sense, it's going to be all wonderfully new. What's not going to be there? There will be no sea. That's S-E-A. No ocean. No sea. Why in the world not? What's wrong with oceans? I mean, I kind of like oceans. We like to go to the ocean. We go to the seaside. We go on vacation down to the beach. What's wrong with having an ocean? Are we going to have a creation in which the planet that we live on or the planets or whatever, however God lays that out, isn't there going to be any oceans? Well, remember how the sea is pictured so often in the book of Revelation. over and over, the sea is not a literal sea of water, it is the source from which all rebellion comes against God. So you find the beast rising up out of the sea. You find the world's tumult. It's raging, and it's lack of peace. It's always tossing and churning. It's pictured as a sea. In heaven, there is a sea, but it's called a sea that is like crystal. It's so flat and calm, and that's where the throne of God is placed. Now, I don't think it's telling us that there will be no seawater, no oceans in the new creation. I think the point is this. The source of all rebellion and chaos will be absent from the new creation. There will be no spiritual source for disharmony. There will be no frustration. There will be no anger. There will be no fear. There will be no impatience. There will be no strife, no conflict in the new creation because there is no source for it. No internal sea where everything is raging in here, and no external sea, no sin outside. It's hard for us to imagine such a place. In the new home that God is making for the bride, in the homeland that He has for her. There can be no rebellion. There can't be any problems, no seed. Second, the first things, look at verse four. The first things will not be there. What are the first things? Well, he lists them there in verse four. He will wipe away every tear. There'll no longer be any death, no longer any mourning. no longer any crying, no longer any pain, the first things have passed away. Why does he describe them like this? It's a reference to a passage in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 65, the people of God are under God's judgment because of their sin. So their life is miserable and there's a lot of tears and crying and mourning and death and pain. And God says to them in chapter 65 that there's a day coming when he will send his Messiah and he will do away with these things. Now, we have not, we have enjoyed a partial fulfillment of that, where God begins to work in the hearts of Christians and these things begin to be dealt with, but obviously not perfectly. So the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 65 is really Revelation chapter 21. Let me read you the verse from Isaiah 65. Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for gladness. So the picture is that one day God will do something that will completely make life here new and his people glad. Now the point in Revelation is related to that. We live right now, John lived 2,000 years ago, in a world that is constantly feeling the effects of sin. There's sorrow, there's tears, there's pain, there's death, there's mourning. But in this home, when Christ finishes the home, and he brings the bride to himself, and all things are made new, in the new creation, there will be none of the old things, none of the former or first things. There will be no tears, no pain, no death, no sorrow. And it's not just impersonal, it's very personal. Look how he describes it. He, the king, will wipe the tears from the eyes. It is God himself that will personally see to it that life with him in eternity, in the new creation, will not ever have one of the former things, one of the effects of sin. The third thing that will not be in our new home, if we're believers, is found in verse eight. There's people that won't be there. Look at verse 8, the cowardly, that's spiritual cowardice, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the immoral, the sorcerers and idolaters and all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. They will not be. What is the inheritance of a person that lives for themselves? What is the inheritance of a person that is very religious and tries hard to fix themselves, but they still get to remain the king? The inheritance is not a perfect, pain-free new creation. It is hell. Well, the people that are in the list, some of them surprise us and some of them we expect to be there. Immoral sorcerers, idolaters, yes, but liars, spiritual liars, people that continue to lie to themselves and lie to other people. How are you doing? I'm just fine. Are you a Christian? Of course I am. There are the spiritual cowards. Christ calls you to believe and repent, and you say, I would, but, and there's always the but, and you are a coward, and you will go to hell for being a coward. There's the unbelievers, I just don't believe that Jesus is as good as He says He is, and you will go to hell disbelieving Christ. It's a strange list, isn't it? People who are afraid to trust Christ, people who are unwilling to trust Christ, people who lie to themselves about Christ will be in hell beside the sorcerer, the immoral, the abomination, They will not be at the new home. Now, what will be there? Well, number one, there will be the king, the husband will be there. It says here that God will be there, the tabernacle of God will be among them. But look at verse 22 of chapter 21. In verse 22 it says this, I saw no temple in it for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. In other words, the tabernacle of God will be there in the sense that God will dwell with his people, but it's not a literal tabernacle. The life in the new creation with God, it's not gonna have a church building. There won't be any church buildings, there won't be any temples, there won't be any tabernacles, because God himself would dwell with his people in such an intimate way, God with us, Emmanuel, that a church building would be useless. You think of it. God created all things. He creates Adam and Eve. He walks with Adam in the cool of the evening. There's nearness. God with us. God is certainly Immanuel. But sin comes. Man is alienated from God and we have been ever since. But God shows in the Old Testament a way for Himself to draw near again to people. He brings people into a relationship with Him, and through the sacrificial death of something else, a picture of Christ, God is able to dwell in their midst. So a tabernacle is there, and the glory of God is there, and later a temple. Later again, we have God with us in the person of Jesus Christ. God actually comes in the person of His Son to live here, but it's limited. It's only 33 years, and He's only in one place at a time. Then God sends His Spirit, and that's less limited. Every believer is part of a living temple of God. This God with us is still true. The Holy Spirit is Emmanuel's Spirit. But now, in chapter 21, What will be in the new home? The new creation that God is making like a home for the bride will include primarily God. God with us without restraint, without limit. There will be an intimacy, a nearness that surpasses any earthly metaphor. So when we think of the father and a child, a mother and a child, a husband and a wife, all of those are swallowed up in the greater love of God. There will not be marriage in heaven and one reason there won't be marriage is surely that when husband and wife view Christ, that the glorious love between a husband and a wife will seem like nothing. compared to the greater love of God and His people. Every other love will be swallowed up in this, and God will be with His people forever in the new home. Second thing that will be there, the bride will be in the new home. I suppose that goes without saying, but look at verse two, chapter 21. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And in case you're tempted to think that that city is a city and not a person, look at verse 9. Then one of the seven angels who had seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me saying, come here. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. Verse 10, and he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming out of heaven. In these verses, what we find is a people are described using the metaphor of a place. It is not a place that's being prepared for people. You will not live in the new Jerusalem. If you're a Christian, you will be the new Jerusalem. But there will be a new creation, and in this new creation, there will be a bride. She's beautiful, she's completed, Christ has already presented her to the Father without spot or wrinkle, blameless in the eyes of God, the one person that sees everything, and she is ready to take up her residence forever with Him. Now, she's also described later in other ways. Number one, she's described, it said, all those who were thirsty, and number two, all those who were overcomers. Now, these are two descriptions of the bride. It's not two different groups from the bride and it's not two different groups in the bride. Every Christian is pictured in the bride and every Christian is described by both of these descriptions. They're thirsty people and they're overcomers, thirsty. Having been separated from God by our sin, humanity is thirsty, but the Christian is thirsty in a different way. We've tried to fill up on everything in the world, it hasn't satisfied us. We've tried morality, we've tried relationships, we've tried purchases, we've even tried religion, and we're still dry. I can't help but remember when Matt spoke at the funeral of Mobley, how he pleaded with people not to drink from the cup of dust. I've never heard, outside of the Bible, a better description of what it is to try to find happiness here. You drink because you're thirsty. You grab the cup, you drink it down, but you drink dust. The Christian is different because of this. Everybody does that. But the Christian, the spirit comes and he begins to peel away all those layers of deceit through the process that we call conviction. And he begins to show us ourselves. And he shows us the emptiness of everything we've been drinking. And he shows us the need on the inside. And he shows us the sufficiency of Christ. And he works in us in such a way that we are not thirsty anymore just for relief, but we want a cure. We don't just want to sip, we want to dive in the fountain and we run to God and we hand our life to Christ and we drink from that fountain and we are alive. But in eternity they're described as the thirsty people who came and drank and now they're allowed to drink for the rest of eternity freely. In other words, this is what it will look like. In the new home that Christ is preparing for you, in the new creation, God will be there, and God will be so near to you, it will be like being as thirsty as possible, and yet there is the clearest, best stream of water flowing all around you all the time, and you are allowed to drink as many times as you want. Second description, overcomers. John was still in the battle, he was persecuted. Every Christian today is still in the battle. Every person that ends up in heaven, every person that ends in the new creation with Christ overcame. How? By faith. All through Revelation we've seen this described. All seven letters to the seven churches mention people who overcome. How do you overcome? And it says, you overcome by the testimony of Christ. That is, you grab hold of what Jesus Christ says to sinners, and you make it yours, and it doesn't matter what you look like, or what the world looks like, or what everyone around you says, you don't let go of the hope that's in Christ alone until you see him face to face. By faith, we overcome. Now for the overcomers, like for the thirsty, there's a description of the reward. The thirsty get this living water flowing around them all the time. The overcomers receive their full inheritance. That is, everything of the new creation is theirs. And they get to experience all that comes with being adopted into God's family. Adoption is a legal act, isn't it? I mean, that's the difference between you stay in the night at somebody's house forever and you being adopted, their child. It's the difference between being a best friend of the family and one of the family. There's adoption. So there's the legal declaration. When you hand your life to Christ and you take Christ for yourself, in that wonderful transaction that we call conversion or faith and repentance, You are legally declared in the family of God, and you begin to experience some of the privileges, but it is not until here in chapter 21 that all the restraints are off, and the Father lavishes on you every possible spiritual happiness forever. The experience of what it's like to be adopted into the royal family begins now, but it doesn't really get going until then, and it never ends. So obviously as an overcomer, that has to affect you. Do you remember what Hebrews said? Hebrews chapter 11, it gives a list of believers, the hall of faith, and how every one of them were given promises, but they didn't really get the promise fulfilled in their lifetime. They died still hoping. That's yet to come. But it said every one of them could have returned to the old life, to the old city, to the old place if they wanted to. They could have gone back to the old land instead of traveling the way God told them if they were not convinced that there was a better thing ahead of them. So for the believer, we look at John, what he writes and sees in chapter 21, and we see a new creation, and we see God dwelling there, and we see the bride perfected, and she comes and she drinks the fullest possible happiness, and she is given all the inheritance, and God the Father is there, and she experiences what it is to be living with the royal family. And seeing that, the Christian wakes up tomorrow morning, and we say to ourselves, I could go back to the old life if I wanted to. I don't want to, because I am captivated by what lies ahead. It's not positive thinking that we live by, it's faith. That is, when God reveals something to be true, we live on it even if nothing else seems to agree. That's what will be there. What won't be in the new home that's being prepared for the bride and what will be. Now, how do we apply this? Two applications. I've mentioned before in relation to heaven and hell that C.S. Lewis wrote a little book called The Great Divorce. Now, I don't recommend C.S. Lewis that everything he writes is gospel, all right? Everything he writes is not perfect. But a lot that he writes is pretty penetrating when he talks about us. And in this book called The Great Divorce, he describes a place called the Gray Town. Everything's gray. Everything's miserable and gloomy. And the narrator of the story finds himself in Greytown. Greytown is a picture of hell. of an everlasting existence without God. And in this imaginary story, a bus is sent there, and they're allowed to take the bus to heaven. And they can choose heaven instead of hell. Obviously, this is all imagination, this isn't going to happen. But what Lewis did was he used this imaginary scene to show us ourselves. Everyone, except for one that I can remember, I haven't read the story in a long time, all but one didn't want heaven, they preferred hell. And the truth is that if Lewis was a better writer, he would have said every one of them because God is the heart of that for the Christian. And if you're not a Christian, you just don't want God. Would you plead with God if the thought of living forever with Him does not entice you? Would you begin to beg Him with an open Bible, spending time in the Scriptures? Would you beg Him to show you Himself? and show you yourself in such a way that what John writes in chapter 21 about a new creation where the heart of everything is God and the river of life is from God and the inheritance is to be with God, would you ask him not to leave you alone until that's what you want more than anything else? Now for the Christian, the commentator William Hendrickson, who's another great writer on the book of Revelation, He makes a big argument in this passage, really long, right? And I will spare you the long argument, but this is what he says. Is this chapter 21 and 22 talking about the ideal bride of Christ and the future of the universe? He said, well, I don't really think it is. I think what we see, let me see if I can get his exact words. He says this. Where'd I write it? Revelation 21 and 22 is a description of the redeemed universe of the future. Yes, we're talking about the future, but it's foreshadowed by the redeemed church of the present. Now this is what his argument is, and it's a good argument. What he says is this, all that you see about the future perfection of creation, that is coming. because God is going to finish his work in his church. So when God finishes his work in his church, the whole creation will be remade. So they're connected. But he says, all that you see about the bride here, and we're going to look at her more next week, is not all future. Yes, the perfection, the completion of that picture is in the future. We won't have that until heaven or until the new creation. But he says, it's already started, hasn't it? Yes, it has. So in other words, when it says that the new home that we have, God will be there with us. Is not God already with a Christian here, dwelling in us, working in us? When it says that He will be our Father and we will be His children, has He not already adopted us if we're Christians? Aren't we already feeling the effects of a heavenly Father? When it says there'll be a fountain there that just flows and flows and you can drink as much as you want freely, are you not already promised? Even in the gospels, didn't Jesus say, if anyone is thirsty, he can come to me and he can drink freely? So all of these pictures are pictures that you as a Christian ought to be able to say, guys, I already have some of that. And I read about it in scriptures, not just my feelings. Yes. So the application for this passage for a Christian is this, live the next 24 hours, get up and live those 24 hours in light of this coming day, where everything the Christian begins to have now, the down payment, will be then experienced without limitation. But if He has already given you the beginning of that paradise kind of existence, why would we be willing to live now with the least of it? Like, well, you know, I am a Christian, but I kind of want to see how far I can, how close I can get to sin and still be a Christian. Why would you want to do that? Why not say, I want to just live? as close to that river of water as possible. I want to live as close to that king as possible. I want to enjoy his fatherly care as much as possible. I don't want to drift. So today I want to live in the realities of Revelation 21 as much as God will let a redeemed sinner live in them on planet Earth. And then one day, after so many of those days, one day there will be the judgment, the new creation, and it will be yours without limit. So we aren't inactive. We're busy living this 24 hours, this present moment in light of that coming moment. Well, may God help us. Jude closes his book describing the presentation of the church. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.