Alright, if you're ready to study together with me, why don't you join me in the book of Revelation this morning. We're nearing the end, as I said last week, of our long study together, many weeks. This is actually week 47 out of a total of 48. I hope to do one more week next week on this theme of the last things. God's plan for all of history, how it's all going to end and then begin again. And appropriately enough, since we're coming to the end, we're going to be looking at the end of God's book. And Revelation chapter 21 this morning is where we will spend most of our time. I'll probably peek over into chapter 22 and may refer to a couple other passages elsewhere in the scriptures, but we'll be camping for the most part in chapter 21. Well, where we left off last week and where we're at in our study is that the Lord is coming again. That's really how God is going to culminate all things. That's the end of the story. God is returning His Son, bringing His Son back to planet Earth. When He comes, He's going to do three main things. All kinds of details that we spent weeks and weeks studying that are attached to each one of these three things. But the three main things that the Lord Jesus is going to do when He returns And they're all one flowing right into the other. He is going to raise all people from the dead who have ever lived, and they are all going to be brought to judgment. Every single human being is going to give an account for all of their life. Every thought, word, and deed. And following that judgment, the Lord is going to make all things new. He's going to recreate His entire creation. And He is making all things new for a very important and specific purpose. And that's really what we're going to be looking at this morning. Just before we read from chapter 21, what I want you to keep in the back of your mind as we go through this material today is that the Bible can be understood, it can be interpreted from a lot of different perspectives, but in the simplest form. The entire Bible is like one big, beautiful, awesome storybook. The Bible is one big story. And it has, like all good stories, a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end. And it's, of course, God's story. It's not a story like people in the world love to comfort themselves with this thought because it allows them to live any way that they want to live. It's not a story that's made up by men. This isn't Moses' story. This isn't Paul the Apostle's story. This isn't John who wrote the book of Revelation's story. This isn't just some wonderful imagination of men. And you know what? Human beings, we do have an awesome, wonderful imagination. I'm not using the term loosely when I say we have an awesome capacity for imagination. It's because we are created to bear the image of God. And our minds and the way that our minds function is intended to image God. I don't know about you, but I love a well told or well written story. I'm really looking forward to next month in the month of December. There's a story that's being told in film right now that I can't wait for the third and final chapter of this film, which is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's a great story. I know how the story goes because I've read the books. In fact, I love the book so much I read the books three times. And I'll probably read them three more times before my days are over. Why? Because it's an awesome story. Maybe, apart from God's word, one of the best stories ever told. But what are we dealing with in the Lord of the Rings? We're dealing with the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien. And he had an awesome imagination and he put together some incredibly imaginative elements. Now, there are some biblical principles that are actually portrayed in the story. And that's, for me, what makes the story particularly appealing, because he was a Christian. He wrote from a Christian perspective. He admitted that he wove biblical concepts in and throughout all of the elements of this story. But it's still an imaginative story. You know, whether you've come to this realization or not, there really was no place called Middle Earth. And hobbits are just imaginary. They don't actually exist. But nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to the story. And I'm going to go see the movie, even though I know how the story turns out, just to see how they tell the story in images. And I'm going to enjoy it thoroughly, I'm sure, just like I enjoyed the first two. The Bible is a storybook also. What's the main difference, though, between the Bible as a storybook and The Lord of the Rings or any other well-told story? This one's true. In all the details, in all of the elements, in all of the story, there is not a single shred of untruth. It's not the imagination of men. This is God's story. And from beginning to end, the story is just told perfectly. But what we've come to now is we've come to the end of the story. And how is God going to end His story? And then, as we've seen already, it's not really only an end. The end and yet it's the beginning of a whole new story. And he just hints in the last couple of chapters and in a few other places throughout his work. He just hints at what the new story is going to be like. We don't have all the details of the new story. Our lives for all of eternity is going to be playing out the new story that God is telling. But we do know somewhat about what it's like. Let's read together in Revelation chapter 21. We'll read verses, we'll probably eventually read the whole chapter today, but we'll just read verses 1 through 7 to start. And in context, and this is an important perspective, this section immediately follows the end of chapter 20, of course, and in the end of chapter 20, just glance We won't read them, but verses 11 through 15 are telling the story of what is commonly called the Great White Throne Judgment. This is the final judgment that we've already studied together. When the Lord returns, He raises people from the dead, brings them before His throne for judgment, and then following that judgment, verse 1 of chapter 21, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the first heaven and the first earth passed away. And there is no longer any sea. 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 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." Now, there's one element that every good story shares, a really well-written story. And that is, like I said, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. But the really, really good stories all share one thing in the qualities of the end of the story, and that is what? A happy ending. And we have these famous words from literature that are used in children's stories, and they lived happily ever after. Now, we hear those words, and What we tend to think about them is, you know, wouldn't it be great if that was what life was really like? But we know in this world, in our present life circumstances, things don't always end up this way, do they? And the way our lives are lived out, we have to deal with things that are described here in verses, looking again for just a second in verse four, we have to deal with things like death. Michael Foxson recently passed away, Creighton not so long ago himself. We have to deal with the mourning that's left for those who remain. Crying, pain, you know, the suffering of just living in a fallen world, living with situations and circumstances that are outside of our ability and our power to control and all of the suffering and the difficulty that goes along with that. And that's part of our life. It's part of our life experience. And it's meant to be, because we're right now in the middle of the story. These things are meant to be part of our life experience. Why? Why hasn't God removed these things yet? Because we're still, even though the Lord Jesus has already come and brought the salvation that God always planned and intended for Him to bring, we're still learning the lesson of how the story started. And how did the story start? It started beautifully without death, without mourning, without crying, without pain or any of those things. But something, of course, terrible happened. And like in any good story, you know, you have conflict that enters in and creates difficulties and barriers and trials and tribulations. that the heroes, the protagonists of the story have to endure and have to deal with. And that's where we're at. We're living out the consequences of what we saw at the beginning of the story is the fall of man. The sin that created all of these things. Death didn't just mysteriously show up in the story. Mourning, crying, pain didn't just out of nowhere show up in the story of this life, in this world. They all came in to the story because of sin. Because of the failure of a single human being to obey God and to submit to His will and follow Him and what He had commanded. And so we're learning that lesson. But the good thing, and this is, I mean, good is just such an inadequate word to describe this, is that the story doesn't end in the middle. God's story doesn't end in the middle. It has an end point. And what God is showing us in these last couple of chapters of his book is that In spite of all that's happened, in spite of the horrendous destruction and warping of his original purpose through sin, God is going to somehow, someway bring about a gloriously great and happy ending for all of those who belong to him. It's going to be so great at the end of the story that when we're there, All we'll have in our hearts is praise and worship and adoration for how God brought us through the entire story and how the entire story ended up. Now there's some particular features of the story, there's some characteristics of the story that I think God wants us to specifically focus on. The first thing is looking in verse, we've already described in verse 1 the fact that it's going to be a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth. somewhat similar to the old heavens and the old earth, because they're both identified by the same basic terms, but yet it's going to be completely different in another way, and that this first one is tainted by sin, as we saw last week. The influence of sin has colored everything in this present creation. Whether we see it, whether we get it or understand it or not, that's spiritually what has taken place. But in the new creation, only righteousness dwells. The very fabric of the new creation is infused with God's righteousness. So we've seen that, but in verse 2, there's a new element introduced to the story at the very end of the story, and that is, something that's going on with this city. And it's a particular kind of city, of course. This is the city that's identified by name as the New Jerusalem, the Holy City, and it's identified as coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. Now, we've already seen that the Lord Jesus has before this passage unfolds, the Lord Jesus himself has already returned. He's come back to raise people from the dead, to judge them, and to make all things new, to make this new heavens and new earth. But now, after he's made all things new, we see the city of God coming down from God, from heaven. Now this detail isn't mentioned specifically, but it's clearly implied, and I don't think anybody's failed to pick this up. If this is a city that's coming down from heaven, where is it coming to? Coming to planet Earth. So the city of God, the New Jerusalem, I'm going to just initialize this as NJ on the board here, the New Jerusalem, this is not New Jersey, the new Jerusalem is going to be at this point on earth. Presently, whenever we read about heaven in other places, and we've talked about this before when we did our several week study on heaven together, we saw that heaven, let me get this on the board too, heaven itself has a story attached to it. And this is part of the bigger story, of course. But heaven has, as I said, a past A present and a future. And we've identified that heaven itself has undergone changes in the past. Heaven itself is not like it was when God first created heaven, and it's not now like it will be in the future. And what is the big change? We've studied together the past and the present of heaven, but I've held until now the future of heaven. Heaven itself has a future in God's story. And what is the biggest change coming for heaven itself? The biggest change is the change of location. Heaven prior to this moment in God's story is where? It's in heaven. Where is that? It's not here. It's not on earth. Where exactly is it? We don't know. We haven't been there. We only believe by faith, because God declares it to be so, that it's a real place and it's somewhere other than here, and you can't get there from here on your own. You can only be taken there by God's means, by God's conveyance. based on, of course, the salvation that only is accomplished through Christ and His death on the cross. But at this moment, at this point in God's story, heaven is not going to be there any longer. Heaven is going to be here. Heaven is coming to earth. And when it comes to earth, it's not coming. And when I say heaven, I'm talking about heaven as the heavenly city. Because other than the heavenly city, the Bible doesn't really talk in these details. I mean, it leaves this much undescribed. But imagine for a moment, if you will with me, let's, in our imagination, travel to heaven for a second. What's in heaven right now? I mean, physically, what is in heaven? The city of God. And everything that's in the city, including the throne, the angels, the saints that are with the Lord right now, the Lord himself, of course, you know, all of the heavenly things. But it's all contained within the city of God, the New Jerusalem, which is in heaven. Now, what's outside the city in heaven? In heaven, what's outside the city? Are you tracking with me here? No, nothing is outside the city. Everything in heaven is inside the heavenly city. In other words, the heavenly city is heaven. It's not like heaven is just this arbitrary place, and the city happens to be in heaven. The city is heaven, and heaven is the city. Does that make sense? So when the city comes down from God from heaven, where is it coming to earth? Therefore, where is heaven from that point forward? It's on earth. Now, is this just a visit? In other words, it's the city coming just to kind of check things out in the new earth. And then later it will go back to heaven where it came from. The whole implication, as you read from this passage forward through the end of the book and the next two chapters, is this is a permanent and final change of the location and the reality of heaven. Heaven on earth is God's plan for all of eternity. The two combine. We've lived in a world here on this earth, and not just we, but everybody that's ever been born, everyone that's ever lived. We've lived in a world separated from heaven. Heaven is real. Heaven is the ultimate reality. Ultimate in the sense of, not that this isn't real here, but ultimate in the sense that this isn't real in the way that God intended it to be. It's a changed reality here, a worse reality. a warped reality that we live in. Our best day here is not nearly as good as what it can be and what it will on that future day be forever and ever and ever. It's kind of like, you ever see these bumper stickers, the worst day fishing is better than the best day at work? What are they trying to communicate there? Which is, they're trying to say, you know, I live a humdrum, mundane life, and of course I go to work, but my work is nothing more than a means for me to buy my fishing equipment. And what I really live for is my weekends when I'm out on the water fishing. And you know, fishing is just whatever brings pleasure to the individual. But the idea is, the worst day, in heaven on earth is going to be so far greater than your very best day has ever been here. And that's going to be the nature of things for all of eternity. Every single day will be the best ever. And here, your best ever is just not good enough. And I'm talking about even the best ever when you're really close to the Lord, things are really right between you and the Lord. Have you ever had a day where things were just clicking? with you and the Lord, and things were just falling in place, you knew you were following in the footsteps that the Lord had marked out for your path that day. And that's a beautiful thing, because not every day for me is like that. But when you have that experience, that's a beautiful day. But it's nothing like every day is going to be here. So the city of God, the heavenly city, is going to come down from God, from heaven, and it's going to come down to earth, and once it gets here, setting down roots. It's here forever and ever and ever. Now, what's the beauty of this? Well, let me just remind you that you don't have to turn here. Let me just turn back and read a passage that's very familiar to all of us from the Sermon on the Mount, where the disciples needed some instruction. in one of the basic aspects of our relationship with the Lord, and that is with prayer. And this is what the Lord taught them at that time. Pray then in this way, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This is the fundamental perspective that a disciple is called by the Lord and instructed by the Lord, even commanded by the Lord, to pray every day for the rest of your life. Now, we've studied this before. This is not so much a formula prayer, but it's an outline of fundamental concerns that should be in every believer's heart every day. And that is, you should be seeking the Lord daily for this final reality to come. What we're looking for, as Peter said, as we saw last week in 2 Peter 3, is we're looking for the end of the story. We are called to live for the end of the story. We're not meant to be satisfied with life as we're experiencing it right now. God wants us to have an unfulfilled life. a holy dissatisfaction with the way things are in this world right now, and to seek Him for the fulfillment, the fullness, the answer, the end, the conclusion of the story. Well, let's look a little bit together at what this is going to be like, because there are some details given to us in these last two chapters. I'm talking about the last two chapters of the book of Revelation. There's just so much detail. Again, I easily could spend weeks, if not months, looking through these details with you, but I just want to do a quick overview of a little bit of what this life is going to be like. These are features of heaven on earth. Once the heavenly city has come down, what will life be like then? And as I said, the Lord is just giving us hints. He doesn't give us Exhaustive details. He just wants to, I think, wet our appetites so that we have a perspective of these things and we have a hunger and a desire for the fulfillment of these things. What's the very first thing? Looking in verse... We'll read from verse... Hold on one second. Verse 10. Actually, I'll go ahead and read verse 9. Then one of the seven angels who had the 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." Now what he's about to show John is he's about to show John the city itself. And both here in this verse and back in the passage that we read in verse 2, it clearly implies that the city equals the bride. Okay? The city equals the bride. Now, that creates somewhat of a problem for us in our thinking. Why? Because in every good story, there is a hero who has a love interest. But it's not a very good story if the hero has more than one love interest. And there's a confusion between the two. Unless that's just creating some dramatic tension in order to lead up to the fulfillment of the love interest with the one. And those are in human stories. God only has one love interest. His Son is the hero of the story. And He has one love interest. He has one appointed Bride. Who do we normally think in terms of the Bride's identity being? The Church is the Bride. Right? But here, the city is called the Bride. So which is it? Is the Church the Bride or is the city the Bride? You guys are good students. Yes, both. The bride is an image that describes the church in its relationship to the Lord. And all the Lord has done in this last two passages is He's added a second image for us to understand that He's trying to describe to us the relationship between Christ and the Church. And this relationship is far deeper and wider and greater than we can easily comprehend and understand. And so He gives us more than one image in order to catch the fullness of what the relationship is between Christ and the church, and how that relationship is going to shape our lives for eternity to come. So when you read the Lord saying, the city is the bride, understand this, the city is just an image to describe the people in the city. The city has no meaning apart from the people that live in the city. Have you ever been to, in Northern California they have a famous one, have you ever been to a ghost town, what they call a ghost town? And what's significant about a ghost town is that it used to mean something. It used to be a place where people lived. It used to have some significance. It used to have some influence and impact on the area that that city was established in. But when you go there now, how many people live in a ghost town? Nobody, unless they happen to be the tourist people that are running the ghost town. And they don't want people living in the ghost town, because that's how they're making their money, to get you to go to or there. But the whole idea of the ghost town concept is that the city is only significant because of the people that are alive in that city. And so the city of God is just pointing to the people of God that inhabit the city, that the city was built for, that as the Lord Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you. The place is significant because of his relationship with us. It's the home that the bridegroom has prepared for his bride. But the city is described for us and it gives us indications of how our lives are going to be for all of eternity. And the first thing that I want to identify is, and I'm going to just list five things here, and let me just get some room on the board. These are features, as I said, of our future life. And the first feature is, and these are just terms that I came up with, there's probably better terms to describe this. Intensity. And let's look at chapter 21, verse 10. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal clear jasper. Now, this little pronoun in verse 11, her, is just another detail that confirms the point I was just trying to make, which is that the city is a representation of the church, the bride, because the city is described using a feminine pronoun. So, the city equals us, as the people of God, our dwelling place for all of eternity, And the first and most significant feature of the city, as you're just with John, looking through John's observing eyes, first time he's ever seen this heavenly city as it's coming down out of heaven, he sees it having the glory of God. Now, we talked a little bit about this way back when we were studying the day of the great resurrection and what our resurrection bodies are going to be like. And words are definitely going to fail me here in trying to describe what I believe God wants us to catch. And that is, our lives for all of eternity are marked by us as the people of God, us as the city of God, having the glory of God. What does that mean? That our lives are going to be marked by having the glory of God. What are our lives marked by now? What do we have now? Well, yeah, praise God, we have some things that are identified like the presence of the Spirit of God is identified as God's down payment, His guarantee of future promise of what He will accomplish. But we have other things too. We have trouble, we have pain, we have difficulty, we have heartache, we have suffering, we have all kinds of things that are part of the fabric of our lives now, then all we will have, and only all that we will have, is the glory of God. Now what is, if we were to try to identify this as a substance, and you can't really because it's not actually a substance, but what is the glory of God? What is that? What is the glory? And I've heard a lot of good thoughts here, but it's hard to identify exactly what the glory is. Can you take God's glory and put it under a microscope and identify it? I don't think so, because God is Spirit. It is radiance, yes. It's light. It's light beyond any human light. You know, when the Lord appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and appeared to him with a light, an out-rain, an out-shining of His glory that was brighter than the light of the noonday sun, so bright that, you know, of course, it blinded Saul for three days and had the Lord, in some sense, not toned down the revelation, it would have done more than just blinded him for three days. What would it have done to him? It would have absolutely, it would have just disintegrated him. Because the full expression of the glory of God cannot be apprehended or even observed by physical human eyes. So God is going to need to recreate our bodies with the capacity to be able to behold His glory. But it's not just, and what I want us to catch here, it's not just that we're going to be in the city of God, and God's going to be there, and because God is there, there's glory over there. The entire city itself is infused with the glory of God. It has the glory of God. We are going to be filled with the glory of God. Everything is going to be really bright. Everything. I'll look at you, and all I'm going to see is, you know, have you ever seen those movies where there's this shining person? It's going to be like that, except it's you are going to be like that, I'm going to be like that, The walls are going to be like that, the floors are going to be like that, the ceilings are going to be like that. Everything is going to be infused with the glory of God, but it won't be like it is now. If you walk out from a dark place into a bright noonday sun, it's kind of discomforting. Our entire makeup is going to be designed to bear that glory, and to appreciate that glory, and to enjoy that glory in its fullness. That's intense. is the way I'm conceiving of this. Second thing, there's great security in this heavenly city. Why? Because, looking in verse 12, it, meaning the heavenly city, It had a great and high wall with 12 gates. And reading down in verse 14, the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones. And then reading down a little further in verse 17, and he measured its wall, 72 yards according to human measurement, which are also angelic measurements. You might have a little notation in your, if you have a study Bible, This was not originally written in yards, of course. It's literally 144 cubits. And what's being described here is either the height or the wall or the width, the breadth, the depth of the wall, the thickness of the wall. I personally think this is describing the thickness of the wall for reasons being that what this approximately works out to in human terminology is about 220 feet high if it was height. The problem is the city itself is nearly 1,500 miles high. All right? So this wall wouldn't be much of a wall. It'd be like, you know, it'd be like barely shoe level to the entire city. So I think it's actually describing the thickness of the wall. And there's room for interpreting that one way or the other. Why is there a wall around the heavenly city at all? Because in ancient times, walls served a very important, critically important function in every city. A city without walls was what? It was dead meat. That's what a city without walls was in the ancient world. Because anyone could just come in and take it over. But a city with walls was a secure city. Why does the heavenly city have such incredibly thick walls? 144 cubits thick. It's just to convey to us the level of security. Not that there are any enemies because we're going to see it also has gates in a moment and those gates are left open all the time. The idea though of God including walls is to just be a visible conscious reminder to us of how secure his city is. The city equals the people, how secure his people are. This is the ultimate expression of what is commonly called in Christian circles, eternal security. You're going to be safe. For the first time in your life, you're going to be totally, completely safe. And you'll be safe forever. Now, all of you believe in the Lord, but how many of you ever in this present life feel just a little bit unsafe? You get on the freeway, do you ever feel just a little bit unsafe? You know, the earthquakes like in 1994, do you feel just a little bit unsafe? The fires on the hills raging out of control, just a little bit unsafe? You know, back in the Rodney King trial, you know, and the people are rioting throughout the city, just a little bit unsafe? Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're intended to feel, in this present life, while sin is still part of the equation, part of the story, we're intended to feel a little bit unsafe. But here, finally and fully safe and secure forever and ever and ever. What else about this city? The city is immense, as I've already alluded to. So, immensity. It's huge. The dimensions of the city are literally 12,000 stadia, which is a Greek form of measurement that John uses. It's translated in our Bibles as 1,500 miles. That's a poor translation because it doesn't work out exactly 1,500 miles. It's a little bit under 1,500, but it was never meant to be conveyed in miles to begin with. And the number is critical because all of these numbers, we won't have time to develop all of the symbolic details here, but the numbers themselves bear symbolism, just like there's 144 cubits in the thickness of the wall, which is a biblical number of 12 times 12. Here it's, you know, 12. 12,000 stadia has its own significance. You can imagine with the number 12 being the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, on and on and on, that there's some significance there. But how big is this? It's the equivalent of nearly 1,500 miles. Nearly 1,500 miles. Well, that's the thing. Let's read real quick. It's a good question. 1,500 in what dimension? Now, if we had a city that was just 1,500 miles wide today, starting in Los Angeles and stretching east, where would the city end? About Dallas. From Los Angeles to Dallas, that's the size of the city. But, if we were to also extend it to the north, where would it end? It'd move on up into Canada. Alright? Be a big city. But, if we also went up, how big would it be? from Los Angeles to Dallas to Canada and then up, how big, how immense would this city be? He says in verse 15, the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall. The city is laid out as a square. And its length is as great as the width, and he measured the city with the rod 1,500 miles. Its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its walls 72 yards, which is 144 cubits, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. So what you have here, how many of you have ever seen Star Trek? Are you familiar with the Borg? What's their vessel? A big cube. Okay, that's a really ugly picture, you know, if you've ever been on a Borg vessel, okay, in your Star Trek imaginations. You know, it's not a pretty picture. This is, instead of this dark, ugly, you know, mechanical device, this is something that in its walls and very substance has the glory of God. But it's one huge, gigantic cube. I'm terrible at drawing stuff. A 1500 mile long, wide, and high cube. Now, the question that's often asked at this point is, is this literal? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, literally? Will the city of God literally be this large in one location on the Earth? I don't know. Does it matter? Probably. If I knew, I'd just tell you, yes, it's absolutely literal, or no, if it's not literal, what else could it be? It could be imagery, like God uses imagery throughout the book of Revelation to describe spiritual realities that are greater than the images. So if it's not literal, I'll say this, it's greater than the image, not lesser than the image, because the images never portray the fullness of the reality. They just get our minds heading in the right direction. and inform our hearts about things that God wants to communicate to us. So the city of God is going to be immense, just like all of God's purposes, of course, are huge. But when you talk about something huge, this is the biggest ever. And this is, of course, big enough to encompass everybody that is meant to be with God for all of eternity. There are going to be millions of souls that are going to share eternity with God, and there's not going to be any population overcrowding problem in God's city. There's going to be room for everyone. Next feature of the city is accessibility. I mentioned this earlier. It's huge, it has walls, And you could never climb over these walls naturally or physically, but it's identified as having gates. Verse 12. It had a great high wall with 12 gates. And at the gates, 12 angels. Now normally this would be a problem in human history. Whenever God establishes gates and He places an angel there, is that for human beings usually a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on which side of the wall you're on. Remember the story of the Garden of Eden? This is where this imagery starts, and this is at the end of the story on purpose. When God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden, He placed a cherubim, which is an angel, a guardian angel, not there to guard Adam and Eve, there to guard the way back into the garden. He placed him there with a flaming sword which turned in every direction. Whatever exactly that means, I don't fully understand it. But, the idea was, Adam couldn't just up and decide, you know what, life outside the garden is not that pleasant, I think I'm going back into the garden, where life is better. The angel was there to stop him, and had he tried to force his entrance, he would have lost the battle between himself and the angel. That's the whole concept. So the gates of this city have angels there, at each gate. But are they there to bar entrance? No. Something's changed. And also what has changed is that there are how many gates now? There are 12 gates, which of course dovetails back to our perfect number, 12 tribes, 12 apostles, the fullness of God's government, the fullness of God's purpose. But why is this a change? Remember in the teaching recently on heaven, I referred to heaven right now as a gated community, that it is barred. There's only one entrance into God's community right now, God's city. and that that entryway is guarded. You can't just enter into heaven today because you want to. You can only come through a single entry point today. Just like in the Old Testament, throughout all of God's images, there was one entry into the garden, there was one entry into the Ark of Noah, there was one entry into the tabernacle, there was one entry into the temple. Now, there are twelve. Why? Because the only people that are in there are God's people. And now the gates are, as it describes, they're thrown open, in a sense, in verse 12 again. And at the gates twelve angels and the names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones. Let me move on here to the rest of the gate material. There is a place, and I think I might have already skipped over it, where it just, it mentions specifically, is it 21? The place I'm looking for, I read it a minute ago, but I'll just refer to it. It says the gates are always open. And here, and we will now look at verse 21, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each one of the gates was a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. So what we have is 12 gates, they're always open. And they're made of pearl. Now all of these things deserve, each one of these three points deserves their own teaching. But the main point about there being twelve rather than one entry into the city is that God has now thrown open His purposes in the new creation, in the new heaven and the new earth. Now everything is open and accessible. The access is to get to Him. Meaning because we're all His people, we all have ready and open access into God's presence in this new creation. The fact that they're open day and night, and it's actually identified elsewhere that there's really only day and there's no night in this new creation, is simply the fact that there is no longer a need to bar access to God's presence. And then one last detail that's worth mentioning is that God, even though He makes the walls with precious stones which signify glory and beauty and value, He makes the gates specifically out of a completely different kind of precious stone, a unique kind of precious stone that's not like any of the others. All of the others are minerals that are made in the earth. These gates are all made, each gate equals, not made out of pearl, like we refer to these in popular terminology as the pearly gates, as if there's like thousands of pearls somehow or millions of pearls to make these fairly relatively small gates. What we're talking about is a city that's 12,000 stadia high and a wall that's huge Either in height or thickness, either way, that is a pretty big pearl. Now, how are pearls normally made? Oysters, right? Where is the oyster big enough to make this pearl? Yeah. Okay, there's not some giant oyster in heaven, okay? The idea here is God chose pearl to signify an important remembrance point, even in the new creation. Pearls, you all know the story of how pearls are formed. They're formed by an irritating bit of material in the oyster, something that oyster hates, something the oyster can't stand. And what does the oyster do with that irritating bit of material? It surrounds it with pearl substance. It just secretes it, which then encircles this bit of grit, this irritating material, and it forms this perfect little ball and it grows larger and larger over time as the oyster continues to cover this irritation, continues to cover it with something precious and which makes that now comfortable to the oyster itself. What is this a remembrance of? Why would God choose that image for the gates into a city? This is a, on a very symbolic level, this is a reminder of the cross. The entryway into the city is, of course, through Christ, through the cross. The cross is all about God covering the irritation of the inhabitants of the city. What we did in our lives, each and every one of us without exception, God hates and irritates Him. And yet, how can He then have fellowship with us for all of eternity? There's only one way, for Him to cover over. our sin with the substance of his salvation, what is secreted in the blood of Christ on the cross. All right, one last thing and we'll end here real quickly. The last feature that I wanted to focus on is that the new creation, the heavenly city that's coming to earth is marked by originality. It's a brand new thing, of course, that God is doing. It's never been seen. None of us have seen its like before. But it's not just that the city is going to be different, everything is going to be different. Turn to chapter 21 again, verses 22 and 23, where this is describing life in the city. What's going to be different about this from life today? I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun, or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb." Now, my question is, when the passage says the city has no need of the sun, does that mean that the sun is shining, but it just doesn't really need it? You know how it is, like if you're indoors, the sun can be shining, but since you've got lights on inside your house, you don't really need the light of the sun at that particular moment. Is that what's being described here? Or is it something even bigger and greater? And that's what I tend to think, which is that this is describing that this new creation is is somewhat unlike the first creation, in that there is a replacement for the physical and natural focal point of this creation right here, that we're living in, is the physical sun of our solar system. Our world is, apart from the physical sun, a dead world. You take the sun away, and what happens to this planet? everything ceases to exist. I mean, we might, through mechanical means, sustain life for a very short period of time, but we would die without the sun. And in that sense, what God has done in this new creation is He's replaced the natural dependence that we have with the ultimate dependence on who? He is the Son of the new creation. He's the light source, the life source. Everything derives from Him. In not an indirect way, like we know God put the Son there to give light to this world. But in the new creation, God is going to be very directly the light and life source of our entire daily life experience for all of eternity. All right, well, we'll stop our study here. And like I said, we have one more week together on this theme of how God is ending all things. Next week, what I'm going to do, rather than focus on details like we did today of the actual circumstances, I just want to do a review of everything we've studied. I'm going to teach you 47 weeks of material in one week next week. And then we'll talk about why it is that we spent so much time studying these things together. Let's pray. Father God, the things that we've just briefly stopped and thought about today and looked at, considered, I know that you've included those descriptions in your Word because you intend those things to change us. You intend those things to affect and influence the way we think, the way we act, the way we live out our lives. And I do ask, Father, that you would cause the seeds of your word this morning, Lord, to produce that kind of good fruit in each one of us. I pray that we would be changed by our perspective of the future, where you're taking each and every one of us, the beauty and the glory and the awesomeness of what you plan. And I thank you for that grace in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. The copyrighted product of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. 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