Will you read with me in Revelation chapter 21? We'll begin in verse 9 and read through the end of the chapter to verse 27. Revelation 21 gives an account of a lot of details about heaven, and I'm excited to share some with you tonight. If you look with me, beginning in verse 9, the Bible says, There came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal, and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth, And he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs, the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, and hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third a chalcedony, the fourth an emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth a chrysopressus, the eleventh adjacent, the twelfth an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, every several gate was of one pearl. And the street and city was pure gold, and it was as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." And let's talk tonight for a minute about heaven, eternity, the eternal dwelling place of God's people. And heaven's a real place. One thing I love about these descriptions, and something that you need to remember, as John is describing heaven, John is describing in earthly terms a heavenly vision. And I'm going to tell you, the descriptions, though inspired by God, are not capable of presenting to us the actual glory that is prepared for us, God's people. You're going to like heaven. I love the old story of the old country preacher who asked the congregation who wanted to go to heaven when they died. Everybody in the church raised their hands except one little boy back in the left-hand corner. It bothered him a little bit. He said, I'll ask you again, who wants to go to heaven when they die? The little boy didn't raise his hand. After church, the pastor went to the little boy and said, I'm a little concerned. I saw that you didn't raise your hand. You want to go to heaven when you die. And the little boy said, well, I do want to go to heaven when I die, but I thought she was getting up a load to go today. And I get it. You know, it's kind of interesting. The longer you live, the more that you're OK with the thoughts of leaving this old world and going to glory to be with Jesus. And that's fine. Just so you know, God has designed us to want to live. And it should be our desire. The heart of a Christian that is in love with Jesus has a desire to go to heaven but also has a desire to live and be used of God while they have a chance to point as many people as possible to heaven. And so I understand that there's a draw in our hearts and lives, that there's a tug, and it's not so bad. The one tug is, it'll be great and sweet to spend eternity in glory, hallelujah, no sin, no sorrow, heaven. But it's also this tug in our hearts to live and serve the Lord, and Paul said it something like this, he said, I've got a desire to depart, but he said it's more expedient for me to stay, it's better for me to stay, and I've got a purpose. And God has prepared heaven for us, and heaven is real. You are going to like heaven. And I'm going to tell you, the cartoonists do a terrible job depicting heaven. If you think that you're going to spend eternity floating around on a cloud with wings coming out your back, strumming a harp, that just ain't so. That don't sound no fun to me at all. And I know that God's prepared something great. for all of eternity, and it's right, it's good. And so John is describing to us what he's seeing, and he's giving us some details about heaven, and I'm excited to know that heaven's real. I'm excited to know because Jesus is my Savior, that I'll spend eternity in heaven. And it's one of those things, another thought about heaven that crosses my mind, and maybe you're with me, is I can't imagine ever actually getting there. And sometimes I've thought to myself a few times, I thought maybe I just have weak faith, because I just can't imagine ever actually being in heaven. Now, I say that I don't doubt that I'm going to be in heaven because I know what the Bible says, but I just can't imagine. I remember as a little boy, I have a vivid memory. I must have been three years old. I was standing in the back hallway near the laundry at my grandmother and grandfather Sturgill's house. I don't remember if it was Dana or which one, I think it was probably Dana, my cousin Dana. She was five years old. I couldn't believe it. I was like, you're five? You've got to be kidding me. And I remember thinking, I can't even imagine being that old. I can't imagine being five. But eventually I got to be five and it was pretty great. And I remember thinking, I remember as a kid having this thought that One of these days, I'm going to school. I'm going to be in kindergarten, and Ms. Cox was my kindergarten teacher, and Ms. Nellie Harmon was my kindergarten teacher, and I remember thinking, I can't imagine ever going to school, but eventually I did, and it was great, it was good. And then I remember all these different times in my life, graduating from high, I couldn't imagine graduating from high school. Boy, that'll be a great one, and eventually, I couldn't imagine what it'd be like, and eventually I did, and couldn't imagine going off to college, but eventually I did. I could imagine being married, and eventually I did. You know, it's sweet. You can't imagine what it's like until you get there. I'm going to tell you something. If Jesus says, I've gone to prepare a place for you, you're going to be happy about what he's prepared. And it's sweet to know that we have the promise of God's blessing for all of eternity. Heaven, heaven. So the scripture gives some insight into heaven, and we'll work here and look through this and some things I hope will be a help to you. Let's begin in verse number nine together. As we look, number one, the first thing I want to bring to your attention in these first few verses is heaven is the eternal residence for the Bride of Christ. Who gets to go to heaven? Those folks who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Heaven is the eternal residence for the Bride of Christ. Let's look at a few verses together, beginning verse number 9. There came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's wife. So we have this angel, this messenger that is as yet to begin his part of the unfolding of the revelation. And so we know that what's going on here is a point and a look toward the future. It's not happened yet. He's looking to the future and he says, John, I want to show you something that's going to happen. I want to show you the bride of Christ, the Lamb's wife. I'm going to show you the great city. I'm going to show you I'm going to give you some insight into it. He says in verse 10, He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. He sees this city, and it's a city. The hymn says it's a city four square. You'll see it here in a minute. Because this city descends from heaven. Now you've got to imagine, here in a minute we're going to see just how big this city was and how far back from this city the vision had to be would be quite amazing because the city of heaven by its size, at most folks, it's probably like three quarters the size of the United States of America. And so you've got this vision of this city descending from heaven and I can only imagine what it would look like. The Lord's going to make sure that John sees heaven and John writes and tells us about heaven. He says, I saw the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. Verse 11, having the glory of God. And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. So what John's saying here is, he says, what I see is this brightness that all I can describe it as is this clear, beautiful light that is like the glory of God. He says this city's glorious. He says it's bright and clear and white and looks like God. Verse 12, "...and had a wall great and high." He sees this city and around the city is a wall great and high. "...and had twelve gates." Notice the twelve. Twelve gates. "...and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel." Now it's fascinating that this is brought up and this is an emphasis. There's twelve gates and Each gate represents one of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel. Now, I'll tell you, you can spiritualize and you can make all kinds of crazy applications on all of these points about heaven, and I'm not going to do that. I don't find it necessary. There's so many things that I don't know. How many of you have ever been around somebody that was just an amazing speculator? Like, they speculate on everything. They have... just imagine what it would... And sometimes I like to say something like, it's fun to think about, but speculation is just that, it's speculation. And so we'll take God and His Word and know that He's got something great for us, but there is something that I think that we can draw, a conclusion we can draw that's pretty great, is that the Lord wants us to know that heaven is going to have a connection to the Old Testament. Heaven is going to have a connection to the 12 tribes of Israel. Heaven is going to have a connection and have its roots in God's plan with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the 12 tribes of Israel. And I want you to know that heaven is going to be full of people who through faith have made their way there. We see these this emphasis and connection to the Old Testament and we see the whole picture that God through the Old Testament would bring to us and through Abraham would bring eventually through David and bring eventually our Savior Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven has an Old Testament connection. It also has a New Testament connection. Look at what the scripture says in verse number 13. We'll continue with a little bit more details about the 12 tribes and then we'll move to the New Testament. The Bible says in verse 13, on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, on the west three gates, and verse 14. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." Now, we have twelve gates and twelve foundations, and I look at the twelve apostles, and I'm reminded of the book of Galatians, chapter 2, verse 20, and the emphasis on the apostles. Now, I want you to know something. has its roots in the Old Testament, and heaven has its completion in the New Testament. And we see that God here puts His stamp of approval on the work of the apostles. And folks, if we're going to have sound church doctrine, if we're going to have thorough, thoroughly biblical standing and practices, we're going to find it in God's Word, and we're going to find it through the Bible and through the writing of the apostles. You see, we have our epistles, we have the writings of the apostles, and I want you to know, God says, hey, look, they make up the foundation of eternity in heaven. And we have this connection of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we see that heaven is the place Heaven is the eternal residence for the Bride of Christ. Everyone who has put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven is the eternal residence for the Bride of Christ. Number two, heaven is big enough for all of God's people. Now this is fun to think about, the size of heaven. And like other things, there could be some discrepancies in the sizing and the old measurements, but we could just take the way that we would interpret and look at Scripture throughout the rest of Scripture And we can make some sense out of a few of these measurements. We'll begin looking at verse 15. Look at what the Bible says. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. Verse 16. And the city lieth four square, and the length is as large as the breadth. And he measured the city with the reed. 12,000 furlongs. 12,000 furlongs. So we have this idea of a cube and most of your commentators say it's either a cube or a pyramid. Who knows? I don't know. God's got that figured out. I don't have to worry about it. But we've got this idea of we've got this city that's come out of heaven and it's 12,000 furlongs. How much is that? Most people would equate the length of a furlong to about 600 feet. And if that's your figure, then most estimates that I've read from folks who are smarter than me are that heaven is 1,500 square miles. 1,500 square miles. And that's pretty amazing. That's something fascinating to think about. What's that look like? Well, it's three-fourths the size of the United States of America, and there's ample room for all of God's people to live in the city of God. It's big enough. It's right. The Bible says that He measured, verse 17, the wall thereof. You see that? We've got two measurements. We've got the footprint and we've got the measurement of the wall thereof. 144 cubits. Now this is a fascinating wall right here. 144 cubits. Now a cubit is generally about 18 inches. And so, when the Bible says earlier in our reading that the wall was great and high, I want you to know something, it was great and high because 144 cubits is something like 216 feet tall. The walls. The walls according to the measure, the cubits according to the measure of man, that is of the angel. It just gives the idea that the cubit is the cubit. Verse 18, I'm sorry, we need to move to the next point. There's plenty of room in heaven. How many of you are worriers? Don't raise your hand. Let me give you something new to worry about. What if they run out of room in heaven? I mean, if you have this idea, sometimes you think, man, I don't know. I mean, what if they run out of room? What if the paperwork gets confused and I don't make it through customs or something? What if we run out of room? Well, the Bible gives us a picture to tell us that there's plenty of room. One square mile per person. A lot of people, I saw so many different things. As I was studying this, I saw so many different things, and so I'm afraid to make strong statements. But one thing that I really liked in response to that comment was some folks said, and I don't know how all the math works out, but one commentator I read said, if 20 billion people which is twice the amount of people that are on the planet right now, if I'm not mistaken, a little more than that. I think 8 billion is the world's population. If twice the population of the world right now is saved and goes to heaven, that according to some folks' math, that would give us all 75 acres each. And if you live right in the middle of 75 acres, you can't help but get along with your neighbors. Isn't that great? That's what heaven's going to be like. I'm not saying that's what it says, but I am saying that we don't have to worry because what God has prepared for us is right. He gives us a picture. He gives us an insight. He says, look, it's really going to happen. It's really there. You may not be able to believe it right now, but it's real. It's real. Heaven is big enough for all of God's people. Heaven is glorious and reflects the glory of God. The next thing that we see here in emphasis is that heaven is glorious. Now I want you to know, when the Lord starts talking about streets of gold, if all the streets are made of gold, I'm going to tell you something, the idea of supply and demand, if the streets are gold, gold is not very valuable anymore. And so we're not talking about, you're going to be like, You remember the Donald Duck? He was like the rich uncle Donald Duck. He would swim around in his gold. I'm seeing that. Some folks have this idea, boy, when I get to heaven, I'm going to be rich. Woo, dog, it's going to be great. Let me tell you something, being rich ain't special if everybody else is rich too. The streets of gold, that's cool, and it's great, but I want you to know the streets of gold do not speak of how rich you're going to be in heaven. The streets of gold and all these amazing pictures that we're seeing and these precious stones that make up the whole place, they speak of one thing that is far greater than any amount of riches you could ever have. They speak to the glory and majesty and amazing nature of the God of heaven. And I'm going to have you know something, the glory of God will be on full display for all of eternity and all of us will be able to revel in the glory of God. You rest in the fact that God is so good and the promises of God for heaven are amazing. And so we look at the glory of God, the Bible says in verse 18, the building of the wall of it was of jasper. The city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper. The second, sapphire. The third, chalcedony. The fourth, emerald. The fifth, sardonyx. The sixth, sardius. The seventh, chrysolite. The eighth, beryl. The ninth, topaz. The tenth, chrysoprisus. The eleventh, adjacent. The twelfth, an amethyst. Now, look, I was trying to look at all these things. The first thing I thought, I want to be, there's 12 of these stones, and I thought, that'd be kind of cool if a long ago they all decided that we'll just make the birthstones the same stones that are on the 12th, that make up the layers, the foundations of the earth. And I want you to know something, they didn't do it. They left the Bible out when they named all these birthstones in different colors. That's not true. The only Bible reference that you could possibly direct these stones back to is perhaps the breastplate on the priest. And maybe, and if you do that, I think it's great. I think you can make some interesting correlation. But the bottom line is something far greater than the priest in the Old Testament is the fact that God's glory is on full display for all of eternity and you and I get to enjoy it. Hallelujah. The Bible says in verse 21, the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Every several gate was of one pearl. Now something I've enjoyed thinking about is these gates. The 12 gates were 12 pearls. Now I want you to know something. I love oysters. I love oysters. How many of you like oysters? I love oysters. And I love them fried. I like them raw. I love oysters. I know some of you go, oh, he's gross. Ruth did that, too. But E-rate, you just imagine. You just imagine what kind of oyster made a pearl that makes a whole gate. I'm telling you, you could eat on him for a month. Gates of not pearls, gates of pearl one. And it's amazing to think about. And it speaks to the glory of God, the majesty of God, the power and creativity of God. Now look, God has done an amazing thing in his creation. Isn't it amazing to look around and imagine what God's created and to see what God's created? I'll have you know something, eyes not seen. Ears not heard, neither is it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for His people. You've looked on the glory of creation with, and you should, you look on the glory of God's creative ability without sin for all of eternity, what He's prepared for His people, and the awe would be something that none of us could handle. Eternity in heaven is glorious. Heaven is glorious and reflects the glory of God. Verse 21, the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Every several gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold as it is, as it were, transparent glass. And finally, number four, heaven is no temple, has no night, and has no sin. Let me roll through these quickly. The Bible says in verse 22, I saw no temple therein. Now look, have you ever been to a city? It'd be kind of like going to a city in the north and not finding a Dunkin' Donuts. You go to a city and there's a temple or a church or something there. But here we go to the city and one thing that he noticed, John knows, is like, I'm looking at the city but there's no temple there. He says, but I can explain it. You don't need a temple. when the whole place is radiant with the presence of God. The secular and the spiritual have no separation because God is the temple, Jesus is the temple. It says like this, I saw no temple there and for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Verse 23, and the city. had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it. Why? There's no sun. There's no moon. Why? For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. Have you ever enjoyed a nice ray of sunlight? Oh, it's sweet. I'm not a sit out in the sun kind of guy but there have been many times I've been cold and I was pretty thankful when the sun started shining on me. I appreciate the sun and the light. I'm going to tell you something. There's never been a light experience like the light that emanates from the face of God and the person of Jesus Christ and we'll enjoy that light for all of eternity. The city had no need of sun, neither of moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did light it. The Lamb is the light there, verse 24. And the nations of them which are saved. Now I love this. Now don't get the idea, don't get messed up when you read the word nations, like whole groups of people, groups are going to be saved. There's going to be nations there, nations not. The word nations has this idea of masses of people. And I'm thankful that lots of people put their faith and trust in Jesus. The Bible says, "...the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it." I'm a member of that nation. The Bible says, "...and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it." Look, there's kings in heaven, there's glory and honor in heaven, there's people in heaven, hallelujah. Verse 25, the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day. Now why do we have a wall and gates? What's that for? I think the wall and the gates speak to the security and the promise and certainty of heaven, but when there's no sin, there's no night, there's no day, the gates are never closed because you don't close the gates till night and there's no night there. There shall be no night there, verse 26, and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. The Bible says, verse 27, and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. Let me tell you something, in heaven, there's no sin. How many of you, your hearts have been broken because of sin? Would you just say amen, one, two, three? Amen. Not in heaven. No sin. Nothing that defileth will be in heaven, verse 27, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie. But, there's no sin in heaven, but, who is? But they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. I'm remembering a song I learned as a kid. is your name written there on the page bright and fair in the book of God's kingdom is your name written there and I'm thankful because as a child I knew I was a sinner and I received Jesus by faith as my Savior I repented of my sins and asked Christ to save me and he promised that he'd be my Lord and Savior. And he wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life. And I can't imagine what it's going to be like. I can't even imagine getting there. But I'm going. Why? Because I'm a really good guy. No. I'm a dirty, rotten sinner, but I've been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And on the merit of Jesus Christ, my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And one of these days, I'm going to enjoy the glory that God has prepared for all of eternity. Amen.